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THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


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EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED  EDITION 


VOLUME  20 
THE  CHRONICLES 
OF  AMERICA  SERIES 
ALLEN  JOHNSON 
EDITOR 

GERHARD  R.  LOMER 
CHARLES  W.  JEFFERYS 
ASSISTANT  EDITORS 


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ANDREW  JACKSON 


Engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre,  after  a  drawing  by  himself  from  life, 
1829.  In  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  of  Distinguished  Americans. 

Charles  Henry  Hart  says:  “Its  fine  characterization  has  made  it 
the  standard  portrait  of  Jackson.  ” 


THE  REIGN 
OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  THE 
FRONTIER  IN  POLITICS 
BY  FREDERIC  AUSTIN  OGG 


NEW  HAVEN:  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
TORONTO:  GLASGOW,  BROOK  &  CO. 
LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1921 


I 


4  t 


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•  J  : 

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'U 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Yale  University  Press 


cACoe 

v.^o 


REMOTE  SrORAG' 


BOOKSTACKS  OFFiU 


CONTENTS 


I. 

II. 

III. 
V IV. 
V. 
VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 
IX. 
X. 

XL 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 

THE  CREEK  WAR  AND  THE  VICTORY  OF 
NEW  ORLEANS 

THE  “CONQUEST”  OF  FLORIDA 

THE  DEATH  OF  “KING  CAUCUS” 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 

THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS 

THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE 

TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 

THE  WAR  ON  THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 

THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  SOUTHERN 
INDIANS 

THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 
INDEX 


Page  1 

“  23 

“  45 

“  68 
“  95 

“  113 
“  137 
“  158 
“  181 

“  201 
“  217 
“  237 
“  241 


•• 

vu 


Q  Q 


\  O 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ANDREW  JACKSON 

Engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre,  after  a  drawing 
by  himself  from  life,  1829.  In  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery  of  Distinguished  Americans, 

Charles  Henry  Hart  says :  “  Its  fine  character¬ 
ization  has  made  it  the  standard  portrait  of 
Jackson.  ’’  Frontispiece 

THE  HERMITAGE,  HOME  OF  ANDREW 
JACKSON 

Drawing  from  a  photograph.  Facing  page  22 

MARQUIS  DE  LAFAYETTE 

Painting  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse.  In  the  Mayor’s 
office,  owned  by  the  Corporation  of  the  City  of 
New  York.  Reproduced  by  courtesy  of  the 
Municipal  Art  Commission  of  the  City  of  New 
York. 

“While  Morse  was  painting  the  portrait  of 
Lafayette  in  Washington,  in  1825,  he  received 
news  of  the  death  of  his  wife.  He  sent  a  message 
to  Lafayette  saying  that  it  would  be  impossible 
for  him  to  go  on  with  the  work  at  present  and 
received  the  following  note  of  sympathy: 

“‘I  have  feared  to  intrude  upon  you,  my  dear 
sir,  but  want  to  tell  you  how  deeply  I  sym¬ 
pathise  in  your  grief — a  grief  of  which  nobody 
can  better  than  me  appreciate  the  cruel  feel¬ 
ings.  You  will  hear  from  me,  as  soon  as  1 
find  myself  again  near  you,  to  finish  the  work 
you  have  so  well  begun.  Accept  my  affection¬ 
ate  and  mournful  sentiment. — Lafayette. 

“‘February  11,  1825* 


IX 


X 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


*‘This  portrait  was  finished  later  on,  and  now 
hangs  in  the  City  Hall  in  New, York.  ” — Edward 
L.  Morse,  Scribner's  Magazine,  March,  1912.  Facing  page  70 

THE  CITY  OF  WASHINGTON,  FROM  BEYOND 
THE  NAVY  YARD 

Aquatint  engraving  by  W.  J.  Bennett,  after  a 
painting  by  G.  Cooke.  Published  by  Lewis 
G.  Clover,  New  York,  1834.  In  the  collection 
of  I.  N.  Phelps  Stokes,  Esq.,  New  York.  “  “  118 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Daguerreotype  from  life,  taken  in  1851.  In  the 
collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society.  “  “  150 

THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK,  PHILADELPHIA. 

NOW  THE  UNITED  STATES  CUSTOM  HOUSE 

Engraving.  “  “  182 

HENRY  CLAY 

Engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre,  after  a  painting  by 
W.  J.  Hubard,  exhibited  in  the  National  Academy 
of  Design,  1832.  In  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  of  Distinguished  Americans.  “  “  198 

THOMAS  H.  BENTON 

Engraving  by  W.  G.  Armstrong,  after  a  drawing 
by  Fendrick.  In  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 
of  Distinguished  Amerwans.  “  “  230 


» 


4 


THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

•  • 

CHAPTER  I 

JACKSON  THE  FEONTIEBSMAN 

Among  the  thousands  of  stout-hearted  British 
subjects  who  decided  to  try  their  fortune  in  the 
Western  World  after  the  signing  of  the  Peace  of 
Paris  in  1763  was  one  Andrew  Jackson,  a  Scotch- 
Irish  Presbyterian  of  the  tenant  class,  sprung  from 
a  family  long  resident  in  or  near  the  quaint  town 
of  Carrickfergus,  on  the  northern  coast  of  Ire¬ 
land,  close  by  the  newer  and  more  progressive 
city  of  Belfast. 

With  Jackson  went  his  wife  and  two  infant  sons, 
a  brother-in-law,  and  two  neighbors  with  their 
families,  who  thus  made  up  a  typical  eighteenth- 
century  emigrant  group.  Arrived  at  Charleston, 
the  travelers  fitted  themselves  out  for  an  overland 

journey,  awaited  a  stretch  of  favorable  weather, 

1 


2  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

and  set  off  for  the  Waxhaw  settlement,  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  eighty  miles  to  the  northwest,  where 
numbers  of  their  kinsmen  and  countrymen  were 
already  established.  There  the  Jacksons  were  re¬ 
ceived  with  open  arms  by  the  family  of  a  second 
brother-in-law,  who  had  migrated  a  few  years 
earlier  and  who  now  had  a  comfortable  log  house 
and  a  good-sized  clearing. 

The  settlement  lay  on  the  banks  of  the  upper 
Catawba,  near  the  junction  of  that  stream  with 
Waxhaw  Creek;  and  as  it  occupied  a  fertile  oasis 
in  a  vast  waste  of  pine  woods,  it  was  for  decades 
largely  cut  off  from  touch  with  the  outside  world. 
The  settlement  was  situated,  too,  partly  in  North 
Carolina  and  partly  in  South  Carolina,  so  that  in 
the  pre-Revolutionary  days  many  of  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  hardly  knew,  or  cared  to  know,  in  which  of 
the  two  provinces  they  dwelt. 

Upon  their  arrival  Jackson’s  friends  bought  land 
on  the  creek  and  within  the  bounds  of  the  settle¬ 
ment.  Jackson  himself  was  too  poor,  however,  to 
do  this,  and  accordingly  took  up  a  claim  six  miles 
distant  on  another  little  stream  known  as  Twelve- 
mile  Creek.  Here,  in  the  fall  of  1765,  he  built  a 
small  cabin,  and  during  the  winter  he  cleared  five 
or  six  acres  of  ground.  The  next  year  he  was  able 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


3 


to  raise  enough  corn,  vegetables,  and  pork  to  keep 
his  little  household  from  want.  The  tract  thus  oc¬ 
cupied  cannot  be  positively  identified,  but  it  lay 
in  what  is  now  Union  County,  North  Carolina,  a 
few  miles  from  Monroe,  the  county  seat. 

Then  came  tragedy  of  a  sort  in  which  frontier 
history  abounds.  In  the  midst  of  his  efforts  to  hew 
out  a  home  and  a  future  for  those  who  were  dear 
to  him  the  father  sickened  and  died,  in  March, 
1767,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-nine,  less  than 
two  years  after  his  arrival  at  the  settlement.  Tra¬ 
dition  says  that  his  death  was  the  result  of  a  rup¬ 
ture  suffered  in  attempting  to  move  a  heavy  log, 
and  that  it  was  so  sudden  that  the  distracted  wife 
had  no  opportunity  to  seek  aid  from  the  distant 
neighbors.  When  at  last  the  news  got  abroad, 
sympathy  and  assistance  were  lavished  in  true 
frontier  fashion.  Borne  in  a  rude  farm  wagon, 
the  remains  were  taken  to  the  Waxhaw  burying 
ground  and  were  interred  in  a  spot  which  tradition, 
but  tradition  only,  is  able  today  to  point  out. 

The  widov/  never  returned  to  the  desolated  home¬ 
stead.  She  and  her  little  ones  were  taken  into  the 
family  of  one  of  her  married  sisters,  where  she 
spent  her  few  remaining  years.  On  the  15th  of 
March,  less  than  two  weeks  after  her  husband’s 


4  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


death,  she  gave  birth  to  a  third  son;  and  the  child 
was  promptly  christened  Andrew,  in  memory  of 
the  parent  he  would  never  know. 

Curiously,  the  seventh  President’s  birthplace  has 
been  a  matter  of  sharp  controversy.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  the  birth  occurred  while  the  mother 
was  visiting  a  neighboring  family  by  the  name  of 
McKemy;  and  Parton,  one  of  Jackson’s  principal 
biographers,  adduces  a  good  deal  of  evidence  in 
support  of  the  story.  On  the  other  hand,  Jackson 
always  believed  that  he  was  born  in  the  home  of 
the  aunt  with  whom  his  bereaved  mother  took  up 
her  residence;  and  several  biographers,  including 
Bassett,  the  most  recent  and  the  best,  accept  this 
contention.  It  really  matters  not  at  all,  save  for 
the  circumstance  that  if  the  one  view  is  correct 
Jackson  was  born  in  North  Carolina,  while  if  the 
other  is  correct  he  was  born  in  South  Carolina. 
Both  States  have  persistently  claimed  the  honor. 
In  the  famous  proclamation  which  he  addressed 
to  the  South  Carolina  nullifiers  in  1832  Jackson 
referred  to  them  as  “fellow-citizens  of  my  native 
state”;  in  his  will  he  spoke  of  himself  as  a  South 
Carolinian;  and  in  correspondence  and  conversation 
he  repeatedly  declared  that  he  was  born  on  South 
Carolina  soil.  J ackson  was  far  from  infallible,  even 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


5 


in  matters  closely  touching  his  own  career.  But 
the  preponderance  of  evidence  on  the  point  lies 
decidedly  with  South  Carolina. 

No  one,  at  all  events,  can  deny  to  the  Waxhaw 
settlement  an  honored  place  in  American  history. 
There  the  father  of  John  C.  Calhoun  first  made 
his  home.  There  the  Revolutionary  general,  An¬ 
drew  Pickens,  met  and  married  Rebecca  Calhoun. 
There  grew  up  the  eminent  North  Carolinian 
Governor  and  diplomat,  William  R.  Davie.  There 
William  H.  Crawford  lived  as  a  boy.  And  there 
Jackson  dwelt  until  early  manhood. 

For  the  times,  young  Andrew  was  well  brought 
up.  His  mother  was  a  woman  of  strong  character, 
who  cherished  for  her  last-born  the  desire  that  he 
should  become  a  Presbyterian  clergyman.  The 
uncle  with  whom  he  lived  was  a  serious-minded 
man  who  by  his  industry  had  won  means  ample  for 
the  comfortable  subsistence  of  his  enlarged  house¬ 
hold.  When  he  was  old  enough,  the  boy  worked 
for  his  living,  but  no  harder  than  the  frontier  boys 
of  that  day  usually  worked;  and  while  his  advan¬ 
tages  were  only  such  as  a  backwoods  community 
afforded,  they  were  at  least  as  great  as  those  of 
most  boys  similarly  situated,  and  they  were  far 
superior  to  those  of  the  youthful  Lincoln. 


6  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Jackson’s  earlier  years,  nevertheless,  contained 
little  promise  of  his  future  distinction.  He  grew 
up  amidst  a  rough  people  whose  tastes  ran  strongly 
to  horse-racing,  cockfighting,  and  heavy  drinking, 
and  whose  ideal  of  excellence  found  expression  in 
a  readiness  to  fight  upon  any  and  all  occasions  in 
defense  of  what  they  considered  to  be  their  personal 
honor.  In  young  Andrew  Jackson  these  character¬ 
istics  appeared  in  a  superlative  degree.  He  was 
mischievous,  willful,  daring,  reckless.  Hardly  an 
escapade  took  place  in  the  community  in  which  he 
did  not  share;  and  his  sensitiveness  and  quick 
temper  led  him  continually  into  trouble.  In  his 
early  teens  he  swore  like  a  trooper,  chewed  tobacco 
incessantly,  acquired  a  taste  for  strong  drink,  and 
set  a  pace  for  wildness  which  few  of  his  associates 
could  keep  up.  He  was  passionately  fond  of  run¬ 
ning  foot  races,  leaping  the  bar,  jumping,  wrestling, 
and  every  sort  of  sport  that  partook  of  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  mimic  battle  —  and  he  never  acknowledged 
defeat.  “I  could  throw  him  three  times  out  of 
four,”  testifies  an  old  schoolmate,  “but  he  would 
never  stay  throwed.  He  was  dead  game  even  then, 
and  never  would  give  up.”  Another  early  compan¬ 
ion  says  that  of  all  the  boys  he  had  known  Jack- 
son  was  the  only  bully  who  was  not  also  a  coward. 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


7 


Of  education  the  boy  received  only  such  as  was 
put  unavoidably  in  his  way.  It  is  said  that  his 
mother  taught  him  to  read  before  he  was  five  years 
old ;  and  he  attended  several  terms  in  the  little  low- 
roofed  log  schoolhouse  in  the  Waxhaw  settlement. 
But  his  formal  instruction  never  took  him  beyond 
the  fundamentals  of  reading,  writing,  geography, 
grammar,  and  “  casting  accounts .  ”  He  was  neither 
studious  nor  teachable.  As  a  boy  he  preferred 
sport  to  study,  and  as  a  man  he  chose  to  rely  on  his 
own  fertile  ideas  rather  than  to  accept  guidance 
from  others.  He  never  learned  to  write  the  Eng¬ 
lish  language  correctly,  although  he  often  wrote  it 
eloquently  and  convincingly.  In  an  age  of  bad 
spellers  he  achieved  distinction  from  the  number 
of  ways  in  which  he  could  spell  a  word  within 
the  space  of  a  single  page.  He  could  use  no 
foreign  languages;  and  of  the  great  body  of  sci¬ 
ence,  literature,  history,  and  the  arts  he  knew 
next  to  nothing.  He  never  acquired  a  taste  for 
books,  although  vanity  prompted  him  to  treasure 
throughout  his  public  career  all  correspondence 
and  other  documentary  materials  that  might  be 
of  use  to  future  biographers.  Indeed,  he  picked 
as  a  biographer  first  his  military  aide,  John  Reid, 
and  later  his  close  friend,  John  H.  Eaton,  whom 


8  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


he  had  the  satisfaction  in  1829  of  appointing  Sec¬ 
retary  of  War. 

When  the  Revolution  came,  young  Andrew  was 
a  boy  of  ten.  For  a  time  the  Carolina  backwoods 
did  not  greatly  feel  the  effect  of  the  change.  But  in 
the  spring  of  1780  all  of  the  revolutionary  troops 
in  South  Carolina  were  captured  at  Charleston,  and 
the  lands  from  the  sea  to  the  mountains  were  left 
at  the  mercy  of  Tarleton’s  and  Rawdon’s  bands 
of  redcoats  and  their  Tory  supporters.  Twice  the 
Waxhaw  settlement  was  ravaged  before  the  pa¬ 
triots  could  make  a  stand.  Young  Jackson  wit¬ 
nessed  two  battles  in  1780,  without  taking  part  in 
them,  and  in  the  following  year  he,  a  brother,  and 
a  cousin  were  taken  prisoners  in  a  skirmish.  To 
the  day  of  his  death  J ackson  bore  on  his  head  and 
hand  the  marks  of  a  saber  blow  administered  by  a 
British  lieutenant  whose  jack  boots  he  refused  to 
polish.  When  an  exchange  of  prisoners  was  made, 
Mrs.  Jackson  secured  the  release  of  her  two  boys, 
but  not  until  after  they  had  contracted  smallpox 
in  Camden  jail.  The  older  one  died,  but  the 
younger,  though  reduced  to  a  skeleton,  survived. 
Already  the  third  brother  had  given  up  his  life  in 
battle;  and  the  crowning  disaster  came  when  the 
mother,  going  as  a  volunteer  to  nurse  the  wounded 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


9 


I 

! 


Waxhaw  prisoners  on  the  British  vessels  in  Charles¬ 
ton  harbor,  fell  ill  of  yellow  fever  and  perished. 
Small  wonder  that  Andrew  Jackson  always  hated 
the  British  uniform,  or  that  when  he  sat  in  the 
executive  chair  an  anti-British  feeling  colored  all 
of  his  dealings  with  foreign  nations! 

At  the  age  of  fourteen,  the  sandy-haired,  pock¬ 
marked  lad  of  the  Waxhaws  found  himself  alone 
in  the  world.  The  death  of  his  relatives  had  made 
him  heir  to  a  portion  of  his  grandfather’s  estate  in 
Carrickf ergus ;  but  the  property  was  tied  up  in  the 
hands  of  an  administrator,  and  the  boy  was  in 
effect  both  penniless  and  homeless.  The  memory 
of  his  mother  and  her  teachings  was,  as  he  was  sub¬ 
sequently  accustomed  to  say,  the  only  capital  with 
which  he  started  life.  To  a  natural  waywardness 
and  quarrelsomeness  had  been  added  a  heritage  of 
bitter  memories,  and  the  outlook  was  not  bright. 

Upon  one  thing  the  youth  was  determined:  he 
would  no  longer  be  a  charge  upon  his  uncle  or  upon 
any  one  else.  What  to  turn  to,  however,  was  not  so 
easy  to  decide.  First  he  tried  the  saddler’s  trade, 
but  that  was  too  monotonous.  Then  he  undertook 
school-teaching;  that  proved  little  better.  Desir¬ 
ous  of  a  ghmpse  of  the  world,  he  went  to  Charles¬ 
ton  in  the  autumn  of  1782.  There  he  made  the 


10  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


acquaintance  of  some  people  of  wealth  and  fell  into 
habits  of  life  which  were  beyond  his  means.  At  the 
race  track  he  bet  and  swaggered  himself  into  notice; 
and  when  he  ran  into  debt  he  was  lucky  enough  to 
free  himself  by  winning  a  large  wager.  But  the 
proceeds  of  his  little  inheritance,  which  had  in 
the  meantime  become  available,  were  now  entirely 
used  up ;  and  when  in  the  spring  the  young  spend¬ 
thrift  went  back  to  the  Waxhaws,  he  had  only  a 
fine  horse  with  elegant  equipment,  a  costly  pair  of 
pistols,  a  gold  watch,  and  a  fair  wardrobe  —  in 
addition  to  some  familiarity  with  the  usages  of 
fashion  —  to  show  for  his  spent  “fortune.” 

One  other  thing  which  Jackson  may  have  carried 
back  with  him  from  Charleston  was  an  ambition 
to  become  a  lawyer.  At  all  events,  in  the  fall  of 
1784  he  entered  the  law  oflBce  of  a  certain  Spruce 
Macay  in  the  town  of  Salisbury,  North  Carolina; 
and,  after  three  years  of  intermittent  study,  he 
was  admitted  to  practice  in  the  courts  of  the  State. 
The  instruction  which  he  had  received  was  not  of 
a  high  order,  and  all  accounts  agree  that  the  young 
man  took  his  tasks  lightly  and  that  he  learned  but 
little  law.  That  he  fully  sustained  the  reputation 
which  he  had  gained  in  the  Waxhaws  is  indicated 
by  testimony  of  one  of  Macay ’s  fellow  townsmen. 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN  11 

after  Jackson  had  become  famous,  to  the  effect 
that  the  former  student  had  been  “  the  most  roar¬ 
ing,  rollicking,  game-cocking,  card-playing,  mis¬ 
chievous  fellow  that  ever  lived  in  Salisbury.” 

Upon  his  admission  to  the  bar  the  irresponsible 
young  blade  hung  out  his  shingle  in  Martinsville, 
Guilford  County,  North  Carolina,  and  sat  down 
to  wait  for  clients.  He  was  still  less  than  twenty 
years  old,  without  influence,  and  with  only  such 
friends  as  his  irascible  disposition  permitted  him  to 
make  and  hold.  Naturally  business  came  slowly, 
and  it  became  necessary  to  eke  out  a  living  by 
serving  as  a  local  constable  and  also  by  assisting 
in  a  mercantile  enterprise  carried  on  by  two  ac¬ 
quaintances  in  the  town.  After  a  year  this  hand- 
to-mouth  existence  began  to  pall.  Neither  then 
nor  in  later  life  did  Jackson  have  any  real  taste  or 
aptitude  for  law.  He  was  not  of  a  legal  turn  of 
mind,  and  he  was  wholly  unprepared  to  suffer  the 
sacrifices  and  disappointments  which  a  man  of 
different  disposition  would  have  been  willing  to 
undergo  in  order  to  win  for  himself  an  established 
position  in  his  profession.  Chagrin  in  this  restless 
young  man  was  fast  yielding  to  despair  when  an 
alluring  field  of  action  opened  for  him  in  the  fast- 
developing  country  beyond  the  moimtains. 


12  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


The  settlement  of  white  men  in  that  part  of 
North  Carolina  which  lay  west  of  the  Alleghanies 
had  begun  a  year  or  two  after  Jackson’s  birth.  At 
first  the  hardy  pioneers  found  lodgment  on  the 
Watauga,  Holston,  Nolichucky,  and  other  streams 
to  the  east  of  modern  Knoxville.  But  in  1779  a 
colony  was  planted  by  James  Robertson  and  John 
Donelson  on  the  banks  of  the  Cumberland,  two 
hundred  miles  farther  west,  and  in  a  brief  time  the 
remoter  settlement,  known  as  Nashville,  became  a 
Mecca  for  homeseeking  Carolinians  and  Virginians. 
The  intervening  hill  and  forest  country  abounded 
in  hostile  Indians.  The  settler  or  trader  who  un¬ 
dertook  to  traverse  this  region  took  his  life  in  his 
hands,  and  the  settlements  themselves  were  sub¬ 
ject  to  perennial  attack. 

In  1788,  after  the  collapse  of  an  attempt  of  the 
people  of  the  “Western  District”  to  set  up  an  in¬ 
dependent  State  by  the  name  of  Franklin,  the 
North  Carolina  Assembly  erected  the  three  coun¬ 
ties  included  in  the  Cumberland  settlement  into  a 
superior  court  district;  and  the  person  selected  for 
judge  was  a  close  friend  of  Jackson,  John  McNairy, 
who  also  had  been  a  law  pupil  of  Spruce  Macay 
in  Salisbury.  McNairy  had  been  in  the  Tennessee 
region  two  years,  but  at  the  time  of  receiving  his 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


13 


judicial  appointment  he  was  visiting  friends  in 
the  Carolinas.  His  description  of  the  opportunities 
awaiting  ambitious  young  men  in  the  back  coun¬ 
try  influenced  a  half-dozen  acquaintances,  lawyers 
and  others,  to  make  the  return  trip  with  him;  and 
among  the  number  was  Jackson.  Some  went  to 
assume  posts  which  were  at  McNairy’s  disposal, 
but  Jackson  went  only  to  see  the  country. 

Assembling  at  Morganton,  on  the  east  side  of 
the  mountains,  in  the  fall  of  1788,  the  party  pro¬ 
ceeded  leisurely  to  Jonesboro,  which,  although  as 
yet  only  a  village  of  fifty  or  sixty  log  houses,  was 
the  metropolis  of  the  eastern  Tennessee  settle¬ 
ments.  There  the  party  was  obliged  to  wait  for  a 
sufficient  band  of  immigrants  to  assemble  before 
they  could  be  led  by  an  armed  guard  with  some 
degree  of  safety  through  the  dangerous  middle 
country.  As  a  highway  had  just  been  opened 
between  Jonesboro  and  Nashville,  the  travelers 
were  able  to  cover  the  distance  in  fifteen  days. 
Jackson  rode  a  fine  stallion,  while  a  pack  mare 
carried  his  worldly  effects,  consisting  of  spare 
clothes,  blankets,  half  a  dozen  law  books,  and 
small  quantities  of  ammunition,  tea,  tobacco, 
liquor,  and  salt.  For  defense  he  bore  a  rifle  and 
three  pistols;  and  in  his  pocket  he  carried  one 


14  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDRE  W  JACKSON 


hundred  and  eighty  dollars  of  the  much  valued 
hard  money.  On  the  second  day  of  November  the 
emigrant  train  made  its  appearance  in  Nashville 
bringing  news  of  much  interest  —  in  particular, 
that  the  Federal  Constitution  had  been  ratified  by 
the  ninth  State,  and  that  the  various  legislatures 
were  preparing  to  choose  electors,  who  would  im- 
doubtedly  make  George  Washington  the  first 
President  of  the  Republic. 

Less  than  ten  years  old,  Nashville  had  now  a 
population  of  not  over  two  hundred.  But  it  was 
the  center  of  a  somewhat  settled  district  extend¬ 
ing  up  and  down  the  Cumberland  for  a  distance  of 
eighty  or  ninety  miles,  and  the  young  visitor  from 
the  Waxhaws  quickly  found  it  a  promising  field  for 
his  talents.  There  was  only  one  lawyer  in  the 
place,  and  creditors  who  had  been  outbid  for  his 
services  by  their  debtors  were  glad  to  put  their 
cases  in  the  hands  of  the  newcomer.  It  is  said  that 
before  Jackson  had  been  in  the  settlement  a  month 
he  had  issued  more  than  seventy  writs  to  defin- 
quent  debtors.  When,  in  1789,  he  was  appointed 
“solicitor,”  or  prosecutor,  in  Judge  McNairy’s 
jurisdiction  with  a  salary  of  forty  pounds  for  each 
court  he  attended,  his  fortune  seemed  made  and  he 
forthwith  gave  up  all  thought  of  returning  to  his 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


15 


Carolina  home.  Instead  he  took  lodgings  under 
the  roof  of  the  widow  of  John  Donelson,  and  in 
1791  he  married  a  daughter  of  that  doughty  fron¬ 
tiersman.  Land  was  still  cheap,  and  with  the  pro¬ 
ceeds  of  his  fees  and  salary  he  purchased  a  large 
plantation  called  Hunter’s  Hill,  thirteen  miles  from 
Nashville,  and  there  he  planned  to  establish  a 
home  which  would  take  rank  as  one  of  the  finest 
in  the  western  country. 

The  work  of  a  frontier  solicitor  was  diverse  and 
arduous.  A  turbulent  society  needed  to  be  kept 
in  order  and  the  business  obligations  of  a  shifty 
and  quarrelsome  people  to  be  enforced.  No  great 
knowledge  of  law  was  required,  but  personal  fear¬ 
lessness,  vigor,  and  incorruptibility  were  indis¬ 
pensable.  Jackson  was  just  the  man  for  the  busi¬ 
ness.  His  physical  courage  was  equaled  by  his 
moral  strength;  he  was  passionately  devoted  to 
justice;  he  was  diligent  and  conscientious;  and,  as 
one  writer  has  remarked,  bad  grammar,  incorrect 
pronunciation,  and  violent  denunciation  did  not 
shock  the  judges  of  that  day  or  divert  the  mind 
of  juries  from  the  truth.  Traveling  almost  con¬ 
stantly  over  the  wretched  roads  and  through  the 
dark  forests,  dodging  Indians,  swimming  his  horse 
across  torrential  streams,  sleeping  alone  in  the 


16  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


woods  with  hand  on  rifle,  threatened  by  desperate 
wrongdoers,  Andrew  Jackson  became  the  best- 
known  figure  in  all  western  Tennessee  and  won  at 
this  time  a  great  measure  of  that  public  confidence 
which  later  became  his  chief  political  asset. 

Meanwhile  the  rapid  growth  of  population  south 
of  the  Ohio  River  made  necessary  new  arrange¬ 
ments  for  purposes  of  government.  In  1790  the 
region  between  the  Ohio  and  the  present  States  of 
Alabama  and  Mississippi,  having  been  turned  over 
to  the  Nation  by  its  earlier  possessors,  was  erected 
into  the  “Southwest  Territory,”  and  in  1791  the 
northern  half  became  the  State  of  Kentucky.  In 
1793  the  remainder  of  the  Territory  set  up  a  Legis¬ 
lature,  and  three  years  later  delegates  from  the 
eleven  counties  met  at  Knoxville  to  draw  up  a 
new  frame  of  government  with  a  view  to  admis¬ 
sion  to  statehood.  Jackson  was  a  member  of  this 
convention,  and  tradition  has  it  that  it  was 
he  who  brought  about  the  selection  of  the  name 
Tennessee,  an  Indian  term  meaning  “The  Great 
Crooked  River,  ”  as  against  Franklin,  Washington, 
and  other  proposed  designations  for  the  new  State. 
At  all  events,  upon  the  admission  of  the  State  in 
1796,  he  was  chosen  as  its  sole  representative  in  the 
lower  branch  of  Congress. 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


17 


In  the  late  autumn  of  that  year  the  young  law¬ 
maker  set  out  for  the  national  capital  at  Philadel¬ 
phia,  and  there  he  arrived,  after  a  journey  of  almost 
eight  hundred  miles  on  horseback,  just  as  the  tri¬ 
umphs  of  the  Democrats  in  the  recent  presiden¬ 
tial  election  were  being  duly  celebrated.  He  had 
not  been  chosen  as  a  party  man,  but  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  his  own  sympathies  and  those  of 
most  of  his  constituents  lay  with  the  Jeffersonians; 
and  his  appearance  on  the  floor  of  Congress  was  an 
omen  of  the  fast-rising  tide  of  western  democracy 
which  should  never  find  its  ultimate  goal  until  this 
rough  but  honest  Tennesseean  should  himself  be 
borne  into  the  presidential  chair. 

Jackson’s  career  in  Congress  was  brief  and  un¬ 
eventful.  After  a  year  of  service  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  he  was  appointed  to  fill  the  un¬ 
expired  term  of  William  Blount  in  the  Senate. 
But  this  post  he  resigned  in  1798  in  order  to  devote 
his  energies  to  his  private  affairs.  While  at  Phila¬ 
delphia  he  made  the  acquaintance  not  only  of 
John  Adams,  Jefferson,  Randolph,  Gallatin,  and 
Burr,  but  of  his  future  Secretary  of  State,  Edward 
Livingston,  and  of  some  other  persons  who  were 
destined  to  be  closely  connected  with  his  later 
career.  But  Jackson  was  not  fitted  for  a  legislative 


i 


18  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


body  either  by  training  or  by  temperament.  He  is 
recorded  as  speaking  in  the  House  only  twice  and 
in  the  Senate  not  at  all,  and  he  seems  to  have  made 
no  considerable  impression  upon  his  colleagues. 
Gallatin  later  described  him  as  “a  tall,  lank,  un¬ 
couth-looking  personage,  with  long  locks  of  hair 
hanging  over  his  face,  and  a  queue  down  his  back 
tied  in  an  eel-skin;  his  dress  singular,  his  manners 
and  deportment  those  of  a  rough  backwoodsman.” 
And  Jefferson  is  represented  as  saying  of  Jackson 
to  Webster  at  Monticello  in  1824:  “His  passions 
are  terrible.  When  I  was  president  of  the  Senate 
he  was  Senator,  and  he  could  never  speak  on 
account  of  the  rashness  of  his  feelings.  I  have 
seen  him  attempt  it  repeatedly,  and  as  often  choke 
with  rage.” 

Return  to  Tennessee  meant,  however,  only  a 
transfer  from  one  branch  of  the  public  service 
to  another,  for  the  ex-Senator  was  promptly  ap¬ 
pointed  to  a  judgeship  of  the  state  supreme  court 
at  a  salary  of  six  hundred  dollars  a  year.  The  posi¬ 
tion  he  found  not  uncongenial  and  he  retained  it 
for  six  years.  Now,  as  earlier,  Jackson’s  ignorance 
of  law  was  somewhat  compensated  by  his  common 
sense,  courage,  and  impartiality;  and  while  only 
one  of  his  decisions  of  this  period  is  extant,  Parton 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


19 


reports  that  the  tradition  of  fifty  years  ago  repre¬ 
sented  them  as  short,  untechnical,  unlearned,  some¬ 
times  ungrammatical,  but  generally  right.  The 
daily  life  of  Jackson  as  a  frontier  judge  was  hardly 
less  active  and  exciting  than  it  had  been  when  he 
was  a  prosecuting  attorney.  There  were  long 
and  arduous  horseback  journeys  “on  circuit”;  ill- 
tempered  persons  often  threatened,  and  sometimes 
attempted,  to  deal  roughly  with  the  author  of  an 
unfavorable  decision ;  occasionally  it  was  necessary 
to  lay  aside  his  dignity  long  enough  to  lend  a  hand 
in  capturing  or  controlling  a  desperate  character. 
For  example,  on  arriving  once  in  a  settlement 
Jackson  found  that  a  powerful  blacksmith  had 
committed  a  crime  and  that  the  sheriff  dared  not 
arrest  him.  “  Summon  me,  ”  said  the  judge;  where¬ 
upon  he  walked  down  from  the  bench,  found  the 
culprit,  led  him  into  court,  and  sentenced  him. 

In  1804  Jackson  resigned  his  judgeship  in  order 
to  give  exclusive  attention  again  to  his  private 
affairs. .  He  had  fallen  badly  into  debt,  and  his 
creditors  were  pressing  him  hard.  One  expedient 
after  another  failed,  and  finally  Hunter’s  Hill  had 
to  be  given  up.  He  saved  enough  from  the  wreck, 
however,  to  purchase  a  small  plantation  eight  miles 
from  Nashville;  and  there,  after  several  years  of 


20  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

financial  rehabilitation,  he  erected  the  handsome 
brick  house  which  the  country  came  subsequently 
to  know  as  “  The  Hermitage.”  In  partnership  with 
two  of  his  wife’s  relatives,  Jackson  had  opened  a 
store  in  which,  even  while  still  a  member  of  the  high¬ 
est  tribunal  of  the  State,  he  not  infrequently  passed 
tea  and  salt  and  calico  over  the  counter  to  his  neigh¬ 
bors.  In  small  trading,  however,  he  was  not  adept, 
and  the  store  failed.  Nevertheless,  from  1804  until 
1813  he  successfully  combined  with  planting  and 
the  stock-raising  business  enterprises  of  alarger  sort, 
especially  slave  and  horse  dealing.  His  debts  paid 
off,  he  now  became  one  of  the  most  prosperous,  as 
he  already  was  one  of  the  most  influential,  men  of 
the  Cumberland  country. 

But  it  was  not  given  to  Andrew  Jackson  to  be  a 
mere  money-maker  or  to  dwell  in  quietness.  In 
1804  he  was  denied  the  governorship  of  the  New 
Orleans  Territory  because  he  was  described  to 
Jefferson  as  “a  man  of  violent  passions,  arbitrary 
in  his  disposition,  and  frequently  engaged  in  broils 
and  disputes.”  During  the  next  decade  he  fully 
lived  up  to  this  description.  He  quarreled  with 
Governor  John  Sevier,  and  only  the  intervention 
of  friends  prevented  the  two  from  doing  each  other 
violence.  He  broke  off  friendly  relations  with  his 


JACKSON  THE  FRONTIERSMAN 


21 


old  patron,  Judge  McNairy.  In  a  duel  he  killed 
Charles  Dickinson,  who  had  spoken  disparagingly 
of  Mrs.  Jackson,  and  he  himself  suffered  a  wound 
which  weakened  him  for  life.  He  publicly  caned 
one  Thomas  Swann.  In  a  rough-and-tumble  en¬ 
counter  with  Thomas  Hart  Benton  and  the  lat¬ 
ter’s  brother  Jesse  he  was  shot  in  the  shoulder  and 
one  of  his  antagonists  was  stabbed.  This  list  of 
quarrels,  threats,  fights,  and  other  violent  out¬ 
bursts  could  be  extended  to  an  amazing  length. 
“Yes,  I  had  a  fight  with  Jackson,  ”  Senator  Benton 
admitted  late  in  life;  “a  fellow  was  hardly  in  the 
fashion  then  who  hadn’t.” 

At  the  age  of  forty-five  Jackson  had  not  yet 
found  himself.  He  was  known  in  his  own  State  as 
“a  successful  planter,  a  breeder  and  racer  of  horses, 
a  swearer  of  mighty  oaths,  a  faithful  and  generous 
man  to  his  friends,  a  chivalrous  man  to  women, 
a  hospitable  man  at  his  home,  a  desperate  and  re¬ 
lentless  man  in  personal  conflicts,  a  man  who 
always  did  the  things  he  set  himself  to  do.”  But 
he  had  achieved  no  nation-wide  distinction;  he  had 
not  wrought  out  a  career;  he  had  made  almost  as 
many  enemies  as  friends;  he  had  cut  himself  off 
from  official  connections ;  he  had  no  desire  to  return 
to  the  legal  profession;  and  he  was  so  dissatisfied 


22  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


with  his  lot  and  outlook  that  he  seriously  con¬ 
sidered  moving  to  Mississippi  in  order  to  make  a 
fresh  start. 

One  thread,  however,  still  bound  him  to  the  pub¬ 
lic  service.  From  1802  he  had  been  major  general 
of  militia  in  the  eleven  counties  of  western  Ten¬ 
nessee;  and  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  three 
calls  from  the  Government  during  a  decade  had 
yielded  no  real  opportunity  for  action,  he  clung 
both  to  the  oflSce  and  to  the  hope  for  a  chance  to 
lead  his  “hardy  sons  of  the  West”  against  a  foe 
worthy  of  their  efforts.  This  chance  came  sooner 
than  people  expected,  and  it  led  in  precisely  the 
direction  that  Jackson  would  have  chosen  —  to¬ 
ward  the  turbulent,  misgoverned  Spanish  depend¬ 
ency  of  Florida. 


THE  HERMITAGE,  HOME  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Drawing  from  a  photograph. 


V 


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CHAPTER  II 


THE  CREEK  WAR  AND  THE  VICTORY  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Evert  schoolboy  knows  and  loves  the  story  of  the 
midnight  ride  of  Paul  Revere.  But  hardly  any¬ 
body  has  heard  of  the  twenty-day,  fifteen-hun¬ 
dred-mile  ride  of  “Billy”  Phillips,  the  President’s 
express  courier,  who  in  1812  carried  to  the  South¬ 
west  the  news  that  the  people  of  the  United  States 
had  entered  upon  a  second  war  with  their  British 
kinsmen.  William  Phillips  was  a  young,  lithe  Ten¬ 
nesseean  whom  Senator  Campbell  took  to  Wash¬ 
ington  in  1811  as  secretary.  When  not  more  than 
sixteen  years  old  he  had  enjoyed  the  honor  of  riding 
Andrew  Jackson’s  famous  steed,  Truxton,  in  a  heat 
race,  for  the  largest  purse  ever  heard  of  west  of 
the  mountains,  with  the  proud  owner  on  one  side  of 
the  stakes.  In  Washington  he  occasionally  turned 
an  honest  penny  by  jockey-riding  in  the  races  on 
the  old  track  of  Bladensburg,  and  eventually  he 
became  one  of  a  squad  of  ten  or  twelve  expert 

23 


24  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


horsemen  employed  by  the  Government  in  carry¬ 
ing  urgent  long-distance  messages. 

After  much  hesitation.  Congress  passed  a  joint 
resolution  at  about  five  o’clock  on  Friday,  June  18, 
1812,  declaring  war  against  Great  Britain.  Be¬ 
fore  sundown  the  express  couriers  were  dashing 
swiftly  on  their  several  courses,  some  toward  re¬ 
luctant  New  England,  some  toward  Pennsylvania 
and  New  York,  some  southward,  some  westward. 
To  Phillips  it  fell  to  carry  the  momentous  news 
to  his  own  Tennessee  country  and  thence  down 
the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans.  That  the  task 
was  undertaken  with  all  due  energy  is  sufficiently 
attested  in  a  letter  written  by  a  Baptist  clergy¬ 
man  at  Lejgngton,  North  Carolina,  to  a  friend, 
who  happened  to  have  been  one  of  Jackson’s  old 
teachers  at  the  Waxhaws.  “  I  have  to  inform  you,” 
runs  the  communication,  “that  just  now  the  Presi¬ 
dent’s  express-rider.  Bill  Phillips,  has  tore  through 
this  little  place  without  stopping.  He  came  and 
went  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  his  horse’s  tail  and  his  own 
long  hair  streaming  alike  in  the  wind  as  they  flew 
by.  But  as  he  passed  the  tavern  stand  where  some 
were  gathered  he  swung  his  leather  wallet  by  its 
straps  above  his  head  and  shouted  —  ‘  Here’s 
the  Stuff!  Wake  up!  War/  W ar  with  England! ! 


THE  CREEK  WAR 


25 


War!!!’  Then  he  disappeared  in  a  cloud  of  dust 
down  the  Salisbury  Road  like  a  streak  of  Greased 
Lightnin’.”  Nine  days  brought  the  indefatiga¬ 
ble  courier  past  Hillsboro,  Salisbury,  Morganton, 
Jonesboro,  and  Knoxville  to  Nashville  —  a  daily 
average  of  ninety-five  miles  over  mountains  and 
through  uncleared  country.  In  eleven  days  more 
the  President’s  dispatches  were  in  the  hands  of 
Governor  Claiborne  at  New  Orleans. 

The  joy  of  the  West  was  unbounded.  The  fron¬ 
tiersman  was  always  ready  for  a  fight,  and  just 
now  he  especially  wanted  a  fight  with  England. 
He  resented  the  insults  that  his  country  had 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  English  authorities 
and  had  little  patience  with  the  vacillating  policy 
so  long  pursued  by  Congress  and  the  Madison  Ad¬ 
ministration.  Other  grievances  came  closer  home. 
For  two  years  the  West  had  been  disturbed  by 
Indian  wars  and  intrigues  for  which  the  English 
officers  and  agents  in  Canada  were  held  largely 
responsible.  In  1811  Governor  Harrison  of  In¬ 
diana  Territory  defeated  the  Indians  at  Tippe¬ 
canoe.  But  Tecumseh  was  even  then  working 
among  the  Creeks,  Cherokees,  and  other  southern 
tribes  with  a  view  to  a  confederation  which  should 
be  powerful  enough  to  put  a  stop  to  the  sale  of 


26  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


land  to  the  advancing  white  population.  A  re¬ 
newal  of  the  disorders  was  therefore  momentarily 
expected.  Furthermore,  the  people  of  the  South¬ 
west  were  as  usual  on  bad  terms  with  their  Spanish 
neighbors  in  Florida  and  Texas;  they  coveted  an 
opportunity  for  vengeance  for  wrongs  which  they 
had  suffered;  and  some  longed  for  the  conquest  of 
Spanish  territory.  At  all  events,  war  with  England 
was  the  more  welcome  because  Spain,  as  an  ally 
of  that  power,  was  likely  to  be  involved. 

Nowhere  was  the  news  received  with  greater 
enthusiasm  than  at  Nashville;  and  by  no  one  with 
more  satisfaction  than  by  Andrew  Jackson.  As 
major  general  of  militia  Jackson  had  for  ten  years 
awaited  just  such  a  chance  for  action.  In  1811 
he  wrote  fervently  to  Harrison  offering  to  come  to 
his  assistance  in  the  Wabash  expedition  with  five 
hundred  West  Tennesseeans,  but  his  services  were 
not  needed.  At  the  close  of  the  year  he  induced  the 
Governor  of  his  State,  William  Blount,  to  inform 
the  War  Department  that  he  could  have  twenty- 
five  hundred  men  “before  Quebec  within  ninety 
days  ”  if  desired.  Again  he  was  refused.  But  now 
his  opportunity  had  come.  Billy  Phillips  was  hardly 
on  his  way  to  Natchez  before  Jackson,  Blount,  and 
Benton  were  addressing  a  mass  meeting  called  to 


THE  CREEK  WAR 


27 


“ratify”  the  declaration  of  war,  and  on  the  fol¬ 
lowing  day  a  courier  started  for  Washington  with 
a  letter  from  Jackson  tendering  the  services  of 
twenty-five  hundred  Tennesseeans  and  assuring 
the  President,  with  better  patriotism  than  syn¬ 
tax,  that  wherever  it  might  please  him  to  find 
a  place  of  duty  for  these  men  he  could  depend 
upon  them  to  stay  “till  they  or  the  last  armed 
foe  expires.” 

After  some  delay  the  offer  was  accepted.  Al¬ 
ready  the  fiery  major  general  was  dreaming  of  a 
conquest  of  Florida.  “You  burn  with  anxiety,” 
ran  a  proclamation  issued  to  his  division  in  mid¬ 
summer,  “  to  learn  on  what  theater  your  arms  will 
find  employment.  Then  turn  your  eyes  to  the 
South!  Behold  in  the  province  of  West  Florida  a 
territory  whose  rivers  and  harbors  are  indispen¬ 
sable  to  the  prosperity  of  the  western,  and  still 
more  so,  to  the  eastern  division  of  our  state.  .  .  . 
It  is  here  that  an  employment  adapted  to  your 
situation  awaits  your  courage  and  your  zeal,  and 
while  extending  in  this  quarter  the  boundaries  of 
the  Republic  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  you  will  ex¬ 
perience  a  peculiar  satisfaction  in  having  conferred 
a  signal  benefit  on  that  section  of  the  Union  to 
which  you  yourselves  immediately  belong.” 


28  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


It  lay  in  the  cards  that  Jackson  was  to  be  a 
principal  agent  in  wresting  the  Florida  country 
from  the  Spaniards;  and  while  there  was  at  Wash¬ 
ington  no  intention  of  allowing  him  to  set  ofiF  post¬ 
haste  upon  the  mission,  all  of  the  services  which  he 
was  called  upon  to  render  during  the  war  con¬ 
verged  directly  upon  that  objective.  After  what 
seemed  an  interminable  period  of  waiting  came  the 
first  order  to  move.  Fifteen  hundred  Tennessee 
troops  were  to  go  to  New  Orleans,  ostensibly  to 
protect  the  city  against  a  possible  British  attack, 
but  mainly  to  be  quickly  available  in  case  an  in¬ 
vasion  of  West  Florida  should  be  decided  upon; 
and  Jackson,  freshly  commissioned  major  general 
of  volunteers,  was  to  lead  the  expedition. 

The  rendezvous  was  fixed  at  Nashville  for  early 
December;  and  when  more  than  two  thousand  men, 
representing  almost  every  family  of  influence  in 
the  western  half  of  the  State,  presented  themselves. 
Governor  Blount  authorized  the  whole  number  to 
be  mustered.  On  the  7th  of  January  the  hastily 
equipped  detachment  started,  fourteen  hundred 
infantrymen  going  down  the  ice-clogged  Cumber¬ 
land  in  flatboats  and  six  hundred  and  seventy 
mounted  riflemen  proceeding  by  land.  The  Gover¬ 
nor  sent  a  letter  carrying  his  blessing.  Jackson 


THE  CREEK  WAR 


29 


responded  with  an  effusive  note  in  which  he  ex¬ 
pressed  the  hope  that  “  the  God  of  battles  may  be 
with  us.”  Parton  says  with  truth  that  the  heart 
of  western  Tennessee  went  down  the  river  with  the 
expedition.  In  a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
Jackson  declared  that  his  men  had  no  “constitu¬ 
tional  scruples,  ”  but  would,  if  so  ordered,  plant  the 
American  eagle  on  the  “walls”  of  Mobile,  Pensa¬ 
cola,  and  St.  Augustine. 

After  five  weeks  the  troops,  in  high  spirits,  re¬ 
assembled  at  Natchez.  Then  came  cruel  disap¬ 
pointment.  From  New  Orleans  Governor  James 
Wilkinson,  doubtless  moved  by  hatred  of  Jack- 
son  quite  as  much  as  by  considerations  of  public 
policy,  ordered  the  little  army  to  stay  where  it 
was.  And  on  the  15th  of  March  there  was  placed 
in  the  commander’s  hands  a  curt  note  from  the 
Secretary  of  W^ar  saying  that  the  reasons  for  the 
undertaking  had  disappeared,  and  announcing  that 
the  corps  under  the  Tennesseean’s  command  had 
“ceased  to  exist.” 

Jackson  flew  into  a  rage  —  and  with  more  reason 
than  on  certain  other  occasions.  He  was  sure  that 
there  was  treachery  somewhere;  at  the  least,  it 
was  all  a  trick  to  bring  a  couple  of  thousand 
good  Tennessee  volunteers  within  the  clutches  of 


30  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Wilkinson’s  recruiting  officers.  He  managed  to 
write  to  the  President  a  temperate  letter  of  protest; 
but  to  Governor  Blount  and  to  the  troops  he  un¬ 
bosomed  himself  with  characteristic  forcefulness  of 
speech.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  return  home. 
But  the  irate  commander  determined  to  do  it  in  a 
manner  to  impress  the  country.  He  kept  his  force 
intact,  drew  rations  from  the  commissary  depart¬ 
ment  at  Natchez,  and  marched  back  to  Nashville 
with  all  the  iclat  that  would  have  attended  a  re¬ 
turning  conqueror.  When  Wilkinson’s  subordi¬ 
nates  refused  to  pay  the  cost  of  transporting  the 
sick,  Jackson  pledged  his  own  credit  for  the  purpose, 
to  the  amount  of  twelve  thousand  dollars.  It  was 
on  the  trying  return  march  that  his  riflemen  con¬ 
ferred  on  him  the  happy  nickname  “  Old  Hickory.” 

The  Secretary  of  War  later  sought  to  appease  the 
irascible  major  general  by  offering  a  wholly  plau¬ 
sible  explanation  of  the  sudden  reversal  of  the 
Government’s  policy;  and  the  expenses  of  the 
troops  on  the  return  march  were  fully  met  out  of 
the  national  treasury.  But  Jackson  drew  from  the 
experience  only  gall  and  wormwood.  About  the 
time  when  the  men  reached  Natchez,  Congress 
definitely  authorized  the  President  to  take  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mobile  and  that  part  of  Florida  west  of  the 


THE  CREEK  WAR  31 

Perdido  River;  and,  back  once  more  in  the  hum¬ 
drum  life  of  Nashville,  the  disappointed  oflBcer 
could  only  sit  idly  by  while  his  pet  project  was 
successfully  carried  out  by  General  Wilkinson,  the 
man  whom,  perhaps  above  all  others,  he  loathed. 
But  other  work  was  preparing;  and,  after  all,  most 
of  Florida  was  yet  to  be  won. 

In  the  late  summer  of  1813  the  western  country 
was  startled  by  news  of  a  sudden  attack  of  a  band 
of  upwards  of  a  thousand  Creeks  on  Fort  Mims, 
Alabama,  culminating  in  a  massacre  in  which  two 
hundred  and  fifty  white  men,  women,  and  children 
lost  their  lives.  It  was  the  most  bloody  occurrence 
of  the  kind  in  several  decades,  and  it  brought  in¬ 
stantly  to  a  head  a  situation  which  Jackson,  in 
common  with  many  other  military  men,  had  long 
viewed  with  apprehension. 

From  time  immemorial  the  broad  stretches  of 
hill  and  valley  land  southwards  from  the  winding 
Tennessee  to  the  Gulf  were  occupied,  or  used  as 
hunting  grounds,  by  the  warlike  tribes  forming  the 
loose-knit  Creek  Confederacy.  Much  of  this  land 
was  extremely  fertile,  and  most  of  it  required  little 
labor  to  prepare  it  for  cultivation.  Consequently 
after  1800  the  influx  of  white  settlers,  mainly  cot¬ 
ton  raisers,  was  heavy;  and  by  1812  the  great 


32  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


triangular  area  between  the  Alabama  and  the  Tom- 
bigbee,  as  well  as  extensive  tracts  along  the  upper 
Tombigbee  and  the  Mobile,  was  quite  fully  occu¬ 
pied.  The  heart  of  the  Creek  country  was  the  re¬ 
gion  about  the  Coosa  and  Tallapoosa  rivers,  which 
join  in  central  Alabama  to  form  the  stream  which 
bears  the  State’s  name.  But  not  even  this  dis¬ 
trict  was  immune  from  encroachment. 

The  Creeks  were  not  of  a  sort  to  submit  to  the 
loss  of  their  lands  without  a  struggle.  Though 
Tecumseh,  in  1811,  had  brought  them  to  the  point 
of  an  uprising,  his  plans  were  not  carried  out,  and  it 
remained  for  the  news  of  hostilities  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  to  rouse  the  war 
spirit  afresh.  In  a  short  time  the  entire  Creek 
country  was  aflame.  Arms  and  ammunition  the 
Indians  obtained  from  the  Spaniards  across  the 
Florida  border,  and  Colonel  Edward  Nicholls, 
now  stationed  at  Pensacola  as  provisional  British 
Governor,  gave  them  open  encouragement.  The 
danger  was  understood  not  only  among  the  people 
of  the  Southwest  but  in  Washington.  Before  plans 
of  defense  could  be  carried  into  effect,  however, 
the  war  broke  out,  and  the  wretched  people  who 
had  crowded  into  the  flimsy  stockade  called  by 
courtesy  Fort  Mims  were  massacred. 


THE  CREEK  WAR 


33 


Hardly  had  the  heap  of  ruins,  ghastly  with  hu¬ 
man  bodies,  ceased  to  smolder  before  fleet  riders 
were  spreading  the  news  in  Georgia,  in  Louisiana, 
and  in  Tennessee.  A  shudder  swept  the  country. 
Every  exposed  community  expected  to  be  at¬ 
tacked  next.  The  people’s  demand  for  vengeance 
was  overmastering,  and  from  north,  west,  and 
east  volunteer  armies  were  soon  on  the  march. 
Tennessee  sent  two  quotas,  one  from  the  eastern 
counties  under  General  John  Cocke,  the  other 
from  the  western  under  Andrew  Jackson.  When 
the  news  of  the  disaster  on  the  Mobile  reached 
Nashville,  Jackson  was  lying  helpless  from  wounds 
received  in  his  fight  with  the  Bentons.  But  he 
issued  the  necessary  orders  from  his  bed  and  let  it 
be  known  with  customary  vigor  that  he,  the  senior 
major  general,  and  no  one  else,  would  lead  the 
expedition ;  and  though  three  weeks  later  he  started 
off  with  his  arm  tightly  bandaged  to  his  side  and  a 
shoulder  so  sore  that  it  could  not  bear  the  pressure 
of  an  epaulette,  lead  the  expedition  he  did. 

About  the  middle  of  October  the  emaciated  but 
dogged  commander  brought  his  forces  together, 
2700  strong,  at  Huntsville  and  began  cutting  his 
way  across  the  mountains  toward  the  principal 
Creek  settlements.  His  plan  was  to  fall  suddenly 


84  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


upon  these  settlements,  strike  terror  into  the  in¬ 
habitants,  and  force  a  peace  on  terms  that  would 
guarantee  the  safety  of  the  frontier  populations. 
Supplies  were  slow  to  arrive,  and  Jackson  fumed 
and  stormed.  He  quarreled  desperately,  too,  with 
Cocke,  whom  he  unjustly  blamed  for  mismanage¬ 
ment.  But  at  last  he  was  able  to  emerge  on  the 
banks  of  the  Coosa  and  build  a  stockade.  Fort 
Strother,  to  serve  as  a  base  for  the  campaign. 

During  the  months  that  followed,  the  intrepid 
leader  was  compelled  to  fight  two  foes  —  his 
insubordinate  militiamen  and  the  Creeks.  His 
command  consisted  partly  of  militia  and  partly  of 
volunteers,  including  many  men  who  had  first 
enlisted  for  the  expedition  down  the  Mississippi. 
Starvation  and  disease  caused  loud  mmmurings, 
and  after  one  or  two  minor  victories  had  been  won 
the  militiamen  took  it  into  their  heads  to  go  back 
home.  Jackson  drew  up  the  volunteers  across  the 
mutineers’  path  and  drove  them  back  to  the  camp. 
Then  the  volunteers  started  off,  and  the  militia  had 
to  be  used  to  bring  them  back!  At  one  time  the 
furious  general  faced  a  mutinous  band  single- 
handed  and,  swearing  that  he  would  shoot  the  first 
man  who  stirred,  awed  the  recalcitrants  into  obe¬ 
dience.  On  another  occasion  he  had  a  youth  who 


THE  CREEK  WAR 


35 


# 

had  been  guilty  of  insubordination  shot  before  the 
whole  army  as  an  object  lesson.  At  last  it  became 
apparent  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  such 
troops,  and  the  volunteers  —  such  of  them  as  had 
not  already  slipped  away  —  were  allowed  to  go 
home.  Governor  Blount  advised  that  the  whole 
undertaking  be  given  up.  But  Jackson  wrote  him 
a  letter  that  brought  a  flush  of  shame  to  his  cheek, 
and  in  a  short  time  fresh  forces  by  the  hundreds, 
with  ample  supplies,  were  on  the  way  to  Fort 
Strother.  Among  the  newcomers  was  a  lank,  angu¬ 
lar-featured  frontiersman  who  answered  to  the 
name  of  Sam  Houston. 

After  having  been  reduced  for  a  short  period  to 
one  hundred  men,  Jackson  by  early  spring  had  an 
army  of  five  thousand,  including  a  regiment  of 
regulars,  and  found  it  once  more  possible  to  act. 
The  enemy  decided  to  make  its  stand  at  a  spot 
called  by  the  Indians  Tohopeka,  by  the  whites 
Horseshoe  Bend,  on  the  Tallapoosa.  Here  a  thou¬ 
sand  warriors,  with  many  women  and  children, 
took  refuge  behind  breastworks  which  they  be¬ 
lieved  impregnable,  and  here,  in  late  March,  Jack- 
son  attacked  with  a  force  of  three  thousand  men. 
No  quarter  was  asked  and  none  given,  on  either 
side,  and  the  battle  quickly  became  a  butchery. 


36  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Driven  by  fire  from  a  thicket  of  dry  brush  in  which 
they  took  refuge,  the  Creek  warriors  were  shot 
down  or  bayoneted  by  the  hundreds;  those  who 
plunged  into  the  river  for  safety  were  killed  as  they 
swam.  Scarcely  a  hundred  survived.  Among  the 
number  was  a  youth  who  could  speak  a  little  Eng¬ 
lish,  and  whose  broken  leg  one  of  the  surgeons 
undertook  to  treat.  Three  stalwart  riflemen  were 
required  to  hold  the  patient.  “Lie  still,  my  boy, 
they  will  save  your  life,”  said  Jackson  encourag¬ 
ingly,  as  he  came  upon  the  scene.  “No  good,” 
replied  the  disconsolate  victim.  “No  good.  Cure 
um  now,  kill  um  again!” 

The  victory  practically  ended  the  war.  Many  of 
the  “Red  Sticks,  ”  as  the  Creek  braves  were  called, 
fled  beyond  the  Florida  border;  but  many  — 
among  them  the  astute  half-breed  Weathersford, 
who  had  ordered  the  assault  on  Fort  Mims  — 
came  in  and  surrendered.  Fort  Jackson,  built  in 
the  river  fork,  became  an  outpost  of  American 
sovereignty  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Creek  district. 
“  The  fiends  of  the  Tallapoosa,  ”  declared  the  vic¬ 
torious  commander  in  his  farewell  address  to  his 
men,  “will  no  longer  murder  our  women  and  chil¬ 
dren,  or  disturb  the  quiet  of  our  borders.” 

Jackson  returned  to  Tennessee  to  find  himself 


THE  VICTORY  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  37 


the  most  popular  man  in  the  State.  Nashville 
gave  him  the  first  of  what  was  destined  to  be  a 
long  series  of  tumultuous  receptions;  and  within 
a  month  the  news  came  that  William  Henry  Har¬ 
rison  had  resigned  his  commission  and  that  J ack- 
son  had  been  appointed  a  major  general  in  the 
army  of  the  United  States,  with  command  in  the 
southwestern  district,  including  Mobile  and  New 
Orleans.  “Thus  did  the  frontier  soldier,  who 
eighteen  months  earlier  had  not  commanded  an 
expedition  or  a  detachment,  come  to  occupy  the 
highest  rank  in  the  army  of  his  country.  No  other 
man  in  that  country’s  service  since  the  Revolution 
has  risen  to  the  top  quite  so  quickly.”  * 

By  his  appointment  Jackson  became  the  even¬ 
tual  successor  of  General  Wilkinson,  with  head¬ 
quarters  at  New  Orleans.  His  first  move,  however, 
was  to  pay  a  visit  to  Mobile;  and  on  his  way 
thither,  in  August,  1814,  he  paused  in  the  Creek 
country  to  garner  the  fruits  of  his  late  victory. 
A  council  of  the  surviving  chiefs  was  assembled 
and  a  treaty  was  presented,  with  a  demand  that  it 
be  signed  forthwith.  The  terms  took  the  Indians 
aback,  but  argument  was  useless.  The  whites 
were  granted  full  rights  to  maintain  military  posts 

*  Bassett,  The  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,  vol.  i,  p.  123. 


38  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


and  roads  and  to  navigate  the  rivers  in  the  Creek 
lands;  the  Creeks  had  to  promise  to  stop  trading 
with  British  and  Spanish  posts;  and  they  were 
made  to  cede  to  the  United  States  all  the  lands 
which  their  people  had  claimed  west  and  southeast 
of  the  Coosa  River  —  more  than  half  of  their  an¬ 
cient  territories.  Thus  was  the  glory  of  the  Creek 
nation  brought  to  an  end. 

Meanwhile  the  war  with  Great  Britain  was  en¬ 
tering  a  new  and  threatening  phase.  No  notable 
successes  had  been  achieved  on  land,  and  repeated 
attempts  to  reduce  Canada  had  signally  failed. 
On  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  high  seas  the  navy  had 
won  glory,  but  only  a  handful  of  privateers  was  left 
to  keep  up  the  fight.  The  collapse  of  Napoleon’s 
power  had  brought  a  lull  in  Europe,  and  the  British 
were  free  to  concentrate  their  energies  as  never 
before  on  the  conflict  in  America.  The  effects 
were  promptly  seen  in  the  campaign  which  led  to 
the  capture  of  Washington  and  the  burning  of  the 
Federal  Capitol  in  August,  1814.  They  were 
equally  manifest  in  a  well-laid  plan  for  a  great 
assault  on  the  country’s  southern  borders  and  on 
the  great  Mississippi  Valley  beyond. 

The  last-mentioned  project  meant  that,  after 
two  years  of  immunity,  the  Southwest  had  become 


THE  VICTORY  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 


39 


a  main  theater  of  the  war.  There  was  plenty  of 
warning  of  what  was  coming,  for  the  British  squad¬ 
ron  intended  for  the  attack  began  assembling  in 
the  West  Indies  before  the  close  of  summer.  No 
one  knew,  however,  where  or  when  the  blow  would 
fall.  To  Jackson  the  first  necessity  seemed  to  be 
to  make  sure  of  the  defenses  of  Mobile.  For  a  time, 
at  all  events,  he  believed  that  the  attack  would  be 
made  there,  rather  than  at  New  Orleans;  and  an 
attempt  of  a  British  naval  force  in  September  to 
destroy  Fort  Bowyer,  at  the  entrance  to  Mobile 
Bay,  confirmed  his  opinion. 

But  the  chief  attraction  of  Mobile  for  the 
General  was  its  proximity  to  Florida.  In  July 
he  had  written  to  Washington  asking  permission 
to  occupy  Pensacola.  Months  passed  without  a 
reply.  Temptation  to  action  grew;  and  when,  in 
October,  three  thousand  Tennessee  troops  arrived 
under  one  of  the  subordinate  oflScers  in  the  recent 
Creek  War,  longer  hesitation  seemed  a  sign  of 
weakness.  Jackson  therefore  led  his  forces  against 
the  Spanish  stronghold,  now  in  British  hands,  and 
quickly  forced  its  surrender.  His  men  blew  up  one 
of  the  two  forts,  and  the  British  blew  up  the  other. 
Within  a  week  the  work  was  done  and  the  General, 
well  pleased  with  his  exploit,  was  back  at  Mobile. 


40  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


There  he  found  awaiting  him,  in  reply  to  his  July 
letter,  an  order  from  the  new  Secretary  of  War, 
James  Monroe,  forbidding  him  to  touch  Pensacola. 
No  great  harm  was  done,  for  the  invaded  territory 
was  no  longer  neutral  soil,  and  the  task  of  soothing 
the  ruffled  feelings  of  the  Spanish  court  did  not 
prove  difflcult. 

As  the  autumn  wore  on,  signs  multiplied  that  the 
first  British  objective  in  the  South  was  to  be  New 
Orleans,  and  no  efforts  were  spared  by  the  authori¬ 
ties  at  Washington  to  arouse  the  Southwest  to  its 
danger  and  to  stimulate  an  outpouring  of  troops 
sufflcient  to  repel  any  force  that  might  be  landed 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  On  the  21st 
of  November,  Jackson  set  out  for  the  menaced 
city.  Five  days  later  a  fleet  of  fifty  vessels,  carry¬ 
ing  ten  thousand  veteran  British  troops  under  com¬ 
mand  of  Generals  Pakenham  and  Gibbs,  started 
from  J amaica  for  what  was  expected  to  be  an  easy 
conquest.  On  the  10th  of  December  the  hostile 
armada  cast  anchor  off  the  Louisiana  coast.  Two 
weeks  later  some  two  thousand  redcoats  emerged 
from  Lake  Borgne,  within  six  or  seven  miles  of 
New  Orleans,  when  the  approach  to  the  city  on 
that  side  was  as  yet  unguarded  by  a  gun  or  a 
man  or  an  entrenchment. 


THE  VICTORY  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  41 


That  the  “impossible”  was  now  accomplished 
was  due  mainly  to  Jackson,  although  credit  must 
not  be  withheld  from  a  dozen  energetic  subor¬ 
dinate  officers  nor  from  the  thousands  of  patri¬ 
ots  who  made  up  the  rank  and  file  of  the  hastily 
gathered  forces  of  defense.  Men  from  Louisiana, 
Mississippi,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee  — 
all  contributed  to  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
military  achievements  in  our  history;  although 
when  the  fight  was  over  it  was  found  that  hun¬ 
dreds  were  still  as  unarmed  as  when  they  arrived 
upon  the  scene. 

A  preliminary  clash,  in  a  dense  fog,  on  the  second 
evening  before  Christmas  served  to  inspire  each 
army  with  a  wholesome  respect  for  the  other.  The 
British  decided  to  postpone  further  action  until 
their  entire  force  could  be  brought  up,  and  this 
gave  Jackson  just  the  time  he  needed  to  assemble 
his  own  scattered  divisions,  select  lines  of  defense, 
and  throw  up  breastworks.  By  the  end  of  the  first 
week  of  January  both  sides  were  ready  for  the  test. 

The  British  army  was  a  splendid  body  of  seven 
thousand  trained  soldiers,  seamen,  and  marines. 

There  were  regiments  which  had  helped  Wellington  to 
win  Talavera,  Salamanca,  and  Victoria,  and  within  a 


42  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


few  short  months  some  of  these  same  regiments  were  to 
stand  in  that  thin  red  line  which  Ney  and  Napoleon’s 
guard  could  never  break.  Their  general,  Pakenham, 
Wellington’s  brother-in-law,  was  a  distinguished  pupil 
of  his  illustrious  kinsman.  Could  frontiersmen  who  had 
never  fought  together  before,  who  had  never  seen  the 
face  of  a  civilized  foe,  withstand  the  conquerors  of  Napo¬ 
leon?  But  two  branches  of  the  same  stubborn  race  were 
represented  on  that  little  watery  plain.  The  soldiers 
trained  to  serve  the  strongest  will  in  the  Old  World 
were  face  to  face  with  the  rough  and  ready  yeomanry 
embattled  for  defense  by  the  one  man  of  the  new 
world  whose  soul  had  most  iron  in  it.  It  was  Sala¬ 
manca  against  Tohopeka,  discipline  against  individ¬ 
ual  alertness,  the  Briton  of  the  little  Isle  against  the 
Briton  of  the  wastes  and  wilds.  But  there  was  one 
great  diflFerence.  Wellington,  “the  Iron  Duke,”  was 
not  there;  “Old  Hickory”  was  everywhere  along  the 
American  lines.  ^ 

Behind  their  battery-studded  parapets  the 
Americans  waited  for  the  British  to  make  an  as¬ 
sault.  This  the  invaders  did,  five  thousand  strong, 
on  January  8,  1815.  The  fighting  was  hard,  but 
the  main  attack  failed  at  every  point.  Three  Brit¬ 
ish  major  generals,  including  Pakenham,  were 
killed  early  in  the  action,  and  the  total  British  loss 
exceeded  two  thousand.  The  American  loss  was 


'Brown,  Andrew  Jackson,  pp.  75-76. 


THE  VICTORY  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  43 


but  seventy-one.  The  shattered  foe  fell  back,  lay 
inactive  for  ten  days,  and  then  quietly  withdrew 
as  they  had  come.  Though  Jackson  was  not  noted 
for  piety,  he  always  believed  that  his  success  on 
this  occasion  was  the  work  of  Providence.  “  Heav¬ 
en,  to  be  sure,”  he  wrote  to  Monroe,  “has  inter¬ 
posed  most  wonderfully  in  our  behalf,  and  I  am 
filled  with  gratitude  when  I  look  back  to  what  we 
have  escaped.” 

By  curious  irony,  the  victory  had  no  bearing 
upon  the  formal  results  of  the  war.  A  treaty  of 
peace  had  been  signed  at  Ghent  two  weeks  before, 
and  the  news  of  the  pacification  and  of  the  exploit 
at  New  Orleans  reached  the  distracted  President  at 
almost  the  same  time.  But  who  shall  say  that  the 
battle  was  not  one  of  the  most  momentous  in 
American  history?  It  compensated  for  a  score  of 
humiliations  suffered  by  the  country  in  the  pre¬ 
ceding  years.  It  revived  the  people’s  drooping 
pride  and  put  new  energy  into  the  nation’s  deal¬ 
ings  with  its  rivals,  contributing  more  than  any 
other  single  event  to  make  this  war  indeed  a 
“second  war  of  independence.”  “Now,”  de¬ 
clared  Henry  Clay  when  the  news  reached  him 
in  Paris,  “I  can  go  to  England  without  morti¬ 
fication.”  Finally,  the  battle  brought  Andrew 


44  THE  REIGN  OP  ANDREW  JACKSON 

Jackson  into  his  own  as  the  idol  and  incarna¬ 
tion  of  the  West,  and  set  the  western  democracy 
decisively  forward  as  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  national  affairs. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  “conquest”  OF  FLORIDA 

The  victory  at  New  Orleans  made  Jackson  not 
only  the  most  popular  man  in  the  United  States 
but  a  figure  of  international  interest.  “Napoleon, 
returning  from  Elba  to  eke  out  the  Hundred  Days 
and  add  the  name  Waterloo  to  history,  paused  now 
and  then  a  moment  to  study  Jackson  at  New 
Orleans.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  chosen  by 
assembled  Europe  to  meet  the  crisis,  could  find 
time  even  at  Brussels  to  call  for  ‘all  available 
information  on  the  abortive  expedition  against 
Louisiana.’”' 

While  his  countrymen  were  sounding  his  praises, 
the  General,  however,  fell  into  a  controversy  with 
the  authorities  and  people  of  New  Orleans  which 
lent  a  drab  aspect  to  the  closing  scene  of  an  other¬ 
wise  brilliant  drama.  One  of  his  first  acts  upon 
arriving  in  the  defenseless  city  had  been  to  declare 

*  Buell»  History  of  Arldrew  Jackson,  vol.  ii,  pp.  94-95. 

45 


46  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


martial  law;  and  under  the  decree  the  daily  life  of 
the  inhabitants  had  been  rigorously  circumscribed, 
citizens  had  been  pressed  into  military  service,  men 
under  suspicion  had  been  locked  up,  and  large 
quantities  of  cotton  and  other  supplies  had  been 
seized  for  the  soldiers’  use.  When  Pakenham’s 
army  was  defeated,  people  expected  an  immediate 
return  to  normal  conditions,  Jackson,  however, 
proposed  to  take  no  chances.  Neither  the  sailing 
of  the  British  fleet  nor  the  receipt  of  the  news  of 
peace  from  Admiral  Cochrane  influenced  him  to 
relax  his  vigilance,  and  only  after  oflScial  instruc¬ 
tions  came  from  Washington  in  the  middle  of 
March  was  the  ban  lifted. 

Meanwhile  a  violent  quarrel  had  broken  out  be¬ 
tween  the  commander  and  the  civil  authorities, 
who  naturally  wished  to  resume  their  accustomed 
functions.  Finding  that  the  Creoles  were  system¬ 
atically  evading  service  by  registering  as  French 
citizens,  Jackson  abruptly  ordered  all  such  people 
from  the  city ;  and  he  was  responsible  for  numerous 
other  arbitrary  acts.  Protests  were  lodged,  and 
some  people  threatened  judicial  proceedings.  But 
they  might  have  saved  their  breath.  Jackson  was 
not  the  man  to  argue  matters  of  the  kind.  A  lead¬ 
ing  Creole  who  published  an  especially  pointed 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORmA  47 

protest  was  clapped  into  prison,  and  when  the 
Federal  district  judge,  Hall,  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  ', 
corpus  in  his  behalf,  Jackson  had  him  also  shut  up. 

As  soon  as  he  was  liberated,  the  irate  judge 
summoned  Jackson  into  court  to  show  why  he 
should  not  be  held  in  contempt.  Beyond  a  blanket 
vindication  of  his  acts,  the  General  would  not 
plead.  “I  will  not  answer  interrogatories,”  he 
declared.  “  I  may  nave  erred,  but  my  motives  can¬ 
not  be  misinterpreted.”  The  judge  thereupon  im¬ 
posed  a  fine  of  one  thousand  dollars,  the  only  ques¬ 
tion  being,  he  declared,  “whether  the  Law  should 
bend  to  the  General  or  the  General  to  the  Law.” 
Jackson  accepted  the  sentence  with  equanim¬ 
ity,  and  to  a  group  of  admirers  who  drew  him  in  a 
carriage  from  the  court  room  to  one  of  the  leading 
coffeehouses,  he  expressed  lofty  sentiments  on  the 
obligation  of  citizens  of  every  rank  to  obey  the 
laws  and  uphold  the  courts.  Twenty-nine  years 
afterwards  Congress  voted  reimbursement  to  the 
full  amount  of  the  fine  with  interest. 

For  three  weeks  after  the  arrival  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  Jackson  lingered  at  New  Orleans,  haggling 
by  day  with  the  contractors  and  merchants  whose 
cotton,  blankets,  and  bacon  were  yet  to  be  paid 
for,  and  enjoying  in  the  evening  the  festivities 


48  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


planned  in  his  honor  by  grateful  citizens.  His 
pleasure  in  the  gala  affairs  of  the  time  was  doubled 
by  the  presence  of  his  wife,  who  one  day  arrived 
quite  unexpectedly  in  the  company  of  some  Ten¬ 
nessee  friends.  Mrs.  Jackson  was  a  typical  frontier 
planter’s  wife  —  kind-hearted,  sincere,  benevolent, 
thrifty,  pious,  but  unlettered  and  wholly  innocent 
of  polished  manners.  In  all  her  forty-eight  years 
she  had  never  seen  a  city  more  pretentious  than 
Nashville.  She  was,  moreover,  stout  and  florid, 
and  it  may  be  supposed  that  in  her  rustic  garb  she 
was  a  somewhat  conspicuous  flgure  among  the 
fashionable  ladies  of  New  Orleans  society. 

But  the  wife  of  Jackson’s  accomplished  friend 
and  future  Secretary  of  State,  Edward  Livingston, 
fitted  her  out  with  fashionable  clothes  and  tact¬ 
fully  instructed  her  in  the  niceties  of  etiquette,  and 
ere  long  she  was  able  to  demean  herself,  if  not  with¬ 
out  a  betrayal  of  her  unfamiliarity  with  the  en¬ 
vironment,  at  all  events  to  the  complete  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  the  General.  The  latter’s  devotion  to  his 
wife  was  a  matter  of  much  comment.  “Debonair 
as  he  had  been  in  his  association  with  the  Creole 
belles,  he  never  missed  an  opportunity  to  demon¬ 
strate  that  he  considered  the  short,  stout,  beaming 
matron  at  his  side  the  perfection  of  her  sex  and  far 


49 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORmA 

and  away  the  most  charming  woman  in  the  world.”  * 
“Aunt  Rachel,”  as  she  was  known  throughout 
western  Tennessee,  lived  to  see  the  hero  of  New 
Orleans  elected  President,  but  not  to  share  with 
him  the  honors  of  the  position.  “  I  have  sometimes 
thought,  ”  said  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  “  that  Gen¬ 
eral  Jackson  might  have  been  a  more  equable 
tenant  of  the  White  House  than  he  was  had  she 
been  spared  to  share  it  with  him.  At  all  events, 
she  was  the  only  human  being  on  earth  who  ever 
possessed  the  power  to  swerve  his  mighty  will  or 
soothe  his  fierce  temper.” 

Shortly  before  their  departure  the  Jacksons  were 
guests  of  honor  at  a  grand  ball  at  the  Academy. 
The  upper  floor  was  arranged  for  dancing  and  the 
lower  for  supper,  and  the  entire  building  was  aglow 
with  flowers,  colored  lamps,  and  transparencies. 
As  the  evening  wore  on  and  the  dances  of  polite 
society  had  their  due  turn,  the  General  finally 
avowed  that  he  and  his  bonny  wife  would  show 
the  proud  city  folk  what  real  dancing  was.  A 
somewhat  cynical  observer  —  a  certain  Nolte, 
whom  Jackson  had  just  forced  to  his  own  terms  in  a 
settlement  for  war  supplies  —  records  his  impres¬ 
sion  as  follows:  “After  supper  we  were  treated  to 

*  Buell,  History  of  Andrew  Jackson,  vol.  ii,  p.  97. 


50  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


a  most  delicious  pas  de  deux  by  the  conqueror  and 
his  spouse.  To  see  these  two  figures,  the  General, 
a  long  haggard  man,  with  limbs  like  a  skeleton,  and 
Madame  la  Generale,  a  short  fat  dumpling,  bob¬ 
bing  opposite  each  other  like  half-drunken  Indians, 
to  the  wild  melody  of  Possum  up  de  Gum  Tree,  and 
endeavoring  to  make  a  spring  into  the  air,  was  very 
remarkable,  and  far  more  edifying  a  spectacle  than 
any  European  ballet  could  possibly  have  fur¬ 
nished.”  But  Jackson  was  only  less  proud  of  his 
accomplishments  as  a  dancer  than  as  a  fighter,  and 
it  was  the  part  of  discretion  for  a  man  of  Nolte’s 
critical  turn  to  keep  a  straight  face  on  this  occasion. 

In  early  April  the  General  and  his  wife  started 
homeward,  the  latter  bearing  as  a  parting  gift  from 
the  women  of  New  Orleans  the  somewhat  gaudy 
set  of  topaz  jewelry  which  she  wears  in  her  most 
familiar  portrait.  The  trip  was  a  continuous  ova¬ 
tion,  and  at  Nashville  a  series  of  festivities  wound 
up  with  a  banquet  attended  by  the  most  dis¬ 
tinguished  soldiers  and  citizens  of  Tennessee  and 
presided  over  by  the  Governor  of  the  State.  Other 
cities  gave  dinners,  and  legislatures  voted  swords 
and  addresses.  A  period  of  rest  at  the  Hermit¬ 
age  was  interrupted  in  the  autumn  of  1815  by  a 
horseback  trip  to  Washington  which  involved  a 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORIDA 


51 


succession  of  dinners  and  receptions.  But  after  a 
few  months  the  much  feted  soldier  was  back  at 
Nashville,  ready,  as  he  said,  to  “resume  the  culti¬ 
vation  of  that  friendly  intercourse  with  my  friends 
and  neighbors  which  has  heretofore  constituted  so 
great  a  portion  of  my  happiness.” 

After  Jackson  had  talked  over  his  actions  at 
New  Orleans  with  both  the  President  and  the  Sec¬ 
retary  of  War,  he  had  received,  as  he  says,  “a 
chart  blank,  ”  approving  his  “whole  proceedings”; 
so  he  had  nothing  further  to  worry  about  on  that 
score.  The  national  army  had  been  reorganized 
on  a  peace  footing,  in  two  divisions,  each  under 
command  of  a  major  general.  The  northern  divi¬ 
sion  fell  to  Jacob  Brown  of  New  York,  the  hero  of 
Lundy’s  Lane;  the  southern  fell  to  Jackson,  with 
headquarters  at  Nashville. 

Jackson  was  the  last  man  to  suppose  that  war¬ 
fare  in  the  southern  half  of  the  United  States  was  a 
thing  of  the  past.  He  knew  that  the  late  contest 
had  left  the  southern  Indians  restless  and  that  the 
existing  treaties  were  likely  to  be  repudiated  at 
any  moment.  Florida  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
Spaniards,  and  he  had  never  a  doubt  that  some 
day  this  territory  would  have  to  be  conquered 
and  annexed.  Moreover  Jackson  believed  for  some 


52  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


years  after  1815,  according  to  General  Eaton,  that 
Great  Britain  would  again  make  war  on  the  United 
States,  using  Florida  as  a  base.  At  all  events,  it 
can  have  caused  the  General  no  surprise  —  or 
regret  —  to  be  called  again  into  active  service  on 
the  Florida  border  before  the  close  of  1817. 

The  hold  of  the  Spaniards  upon  Florida  had 
been  so  far  weakened  by  the  War  of  1812  that  after 
the  restoration  of  peace  they  occupied  only  three 
important  points  —  Pensacola,  St.  Marks,  and  St. 
Augustine.  The  rest  of  the  territory  became  a 
No  Man’s  Land,  an  ideal  resort  for  desperate  ad¬ 
venturers  of  every  race  and  description.  There 
was  a  considerable  Indian  population,  consisting 
mainly  of  Seminoles,  a  tribe  belonging  to  the  Creek 
Confederacy,  together  with  other  Creeks  who  had 
fled  across  the  border  to  escape  the  vengeance 
of  Jackson  at  Tohopeka.  All  were  bitterly  hos¬ 
tile  to  the  United  States.  There  were  Spanish 
freebooters,  Irish  roustabouts,  Scotch  free  lances, 
and  runaway  slaves  —  a  nondescript  lot,  and 
all  ready  for  any  undertaking  that  promised  ex¬ 
citement,  revenge,  or  booty.  Furthermore  there 
were  some  British  soldiers  who  had  remained 
on  their  own  responsibility  after  the  troops  were 
withdrawn.  The  leading  spirit  among  these  was 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORIDA  53 

Colonel  Edward  Nicholls,  who  had  already  made 
himself  obnoxious  to  the  United  States  by  his 
conduct  at  Pensacola. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  Nicholls  and  his  men 
built  a  fort  on  the  Apalachicola,  fifteen  miles 
from  the  Gulf,  and  began  again  to  collect  and  or¬ 
ganize  fugitive  slaves,  Indians,  and  adventurers  of 
every  sort,  whom  they  employed  on  raids  into  the 
territory  of  the  United  States  and  in  attacks  upon 
its  inhabitants.  The  Creeks  were  falsely  informed 
that  in  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  the  United  States  had 
promised  to  give  up  all  lands  taken  from  them 
during  the  late  war,  and  they  were  thus  incited  to 
rise  in  vindication  of  their  alleged  rights.  What 
Nicholls  was  aiming  at  came  out  when,  in  com¬ 
pany  with  several  chieftains,  he  returned  to  Eng¬ 
land  to  ask  for  an  alliance  between  the  “mother 
country  ”  and  his  buccaneer  state.  He  met  no  en¬ 
couragement,  however,  and  in  reply  to  an  Ameri¬ 
can  protest  the  British  Government  repudiated  his 
acts.  His  role  was  nevertheless  promptly  taken 
up  by  a  misguided  Scotch  trader,  Alexander  Ar- 
buthnot,  and  the  reign  of  lawlessness  continued. 

After  all,  it  was  Spain’s  business  to  keep  order 
on  the  frontier;  and  the  United  States  waited  a 
year  and  a  half  for  the  Madrid  Government  to  give 


54  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


evidence  of  intent  to  do  so.  But,  as  nothing  but 
vain  promises  were  forthcoming,  some  American 
troops  engaged  in  building  a  fort  on  the  Apalachi¬ 
cola,  just  north  of  the  boundary  line,  marched 
down  the  river  in  July,  1816,  bombarded  Nicholls’s 
Negro  Fort,  blew  up  its  magazine,  and  practically 
exterminated  the  negro  and  Indian  garrison,  A 
menace  to  the  slave  property  of  southern  Georgia 
was  thus  removed,  but  the  bigger  problem  re¬ 
mained.  The  Seminoles  were  restive;  the  refugee 
Creeks  kept  up  their  forays  across  the  border;  and 
the  rich  lands  acquired  by  the  Treaty  of  Fort 
Jackson  were  fast  filling  with  white  settlers  who 
clamored  for  protection.  Though  the  Monroe  Ad¬ 
ministration  had  opened  negotiations  for  the  ces¬ 
sion  of  the  whole  Florida  country  to  the  United 
States,  progress  was  slow  and  the  outcome  doubtful. 

Matters  came  to  a  head  in  the  closing  weeks  of 
1817.  General  Gaines,  who  was  in  command  on 
the  Florida  border,  had  tried  repeatedly  to  get  an 
interview  with  the  principal  “Red  Stick”  chieftain, 
but  all  of  his  overtures  had  been  repulsed.  Finally 
he  sent  a  detachment  of  soldiers  to  conduct  the 
dignitary  and  his  warriors  from  their  village  at 
Fowltown,  on  the  American  side  of  the  line,  to  a 
designated  parley  ground.  In  no  mood  for  nego- 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORn)A  55 

tiation,  the  chief  ordered  his  followers  to  fire  on 
the  visitors;  whereupon  the  latter  seized  and  de¬ 
stroyed  the  village. 

The  fight  at  Fowltown  may  be  regarded  as  the 
beginning  of  the  Seminole  War.  General  Gaines 
was  directed  to  begin  operations  against  the  In¬ 
dians  and  to  pursue  them  if  necessary  into  East 
Florida;  but  before  he  could  carry  out  his  orders, 
Jackson  was  put  in  personal  command  of  the  forces 
acting  against  the  Indians  and  was  instructed  to 
concentrate  all  of  the  troops  in  his  department  at 
Fort  Scott  and  to  obtain  from  the  Governors  of 
Georgia  and  Tennessee  such  other  assistance  as  he 
should  need. 

Jackson  received  his  orders  at  the  Hermitage. 
Governor  Blount  was  absent  from  Nashville,  but 
the  eager  commander  went  ahead  raising  troops  on 
his  own  responsibility.  Nothing  was  so  certain  to 
whet  his  appetite  for  action  as  the  prospect  of  a 
war  in  Florida.  Not  only  did  his  instructions 
authorize  him  to  pursue  the  enemy,  under  certain 
conditions,  into  Spanish  territory,  but  from  the 
first  he  himself  conceived  of  the  enterprise  as 
decidedly  more  than  a  punitive  expedition.  The 
United  States  wanted  Florida  and  was  at  the 
moment  trying  to  induce  Spain  to  give  it  up. 


56  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Here  was  the  chance  to  take  it  regardless  of  Spain. 
“Let  it  be  signified  to  me  through  any  channel 
(say  Mr.  J.  Rhea),”  wrote  the  Major  General  to 
the  President,  “that  the  possession  of  the  Floridas 
would  be  desirable  to  the  United  States,  and  in 
sixty  days  it  will  be  accomplished.” 

This  “Rhea  letter”  became  the  innocent  source 
of  one  of  the  most  famous  controversies  in  Ameri¬ 
can  history.  Jackson  supposed  that  the  communi¬ 
cation  had  been  promptly  delivered  to  Monroe, 
and  that  his  plan  for  the  conquest  of  Florida  had 
the  full,  if  secret,  approval  of  the  Administration. 
Instructions  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  Calhoun, 
seemed  susceptible  of  no  other  interpretation;  be¬ 
sides,  the  conqueror  subsequently  maintained  that 
he  received  through  Rhea  the  assurance  that  he 
coveted.  Monroe,  however,  later  denied  flatly 
that  he  had  given  any  orders  of  the  kind.  Indeed 
he  said  that  through  a  peculiar  combination  of  cir¬ 
cumstances  he  had  not  even  read  Jackson’s  letter 
until  long  after  the  Florida  campaign  was  ended. 
Each  man,  no  doubt,  thought  he  was  telling  the 
truth,  and  historians  will  probably  always  differ 
upon  the  merits  of  the  case.  The  one  thing  that  is 
perfectly  certain  is  that  Jackson,  when  he  carried 
his  troops  into  Florida  in  1818,  believed  that  the 


57 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORIDA 

Government  expected  him  to  prepare  the  territory 
for  permanent  American  occupation. 

In  early  March,  Jackson  was  at  Fort  Scott,  on 
the  Georgia  frontier,  with  about  two  thousand 
men.  Though  he  expected  other  forces,  Jackson 
found  that  scarcity  of  rations  made  it  inadvisable 
to  wait  for  them,  and  he  therefore  marched  his 
army  on  as  rapidly  as  possible  down  the  soggy 
bank  of  the  Apalachicola,  past  the  ruins  of  Negro 
Fort,  into  Florida,  where  he  found  in  readiness 
the  provisions  which  had  been  sent  forward  by 
way  of  Mobile.  Turning  eastward,  Jackson  bore 
down  upon  the  Spanish  settlement  of  St.  Marks, 
where  it  was  rumored  that  the  hostile  natives  had 
assembled  in  considerable  numbers.  A  small  fleet 
of  gunboats  from  Mobile  and  New  Orleans  was 
ordered  to  move  along  the  coast  and  intercept  any 
fugitives,  “white,  red,  or  black.”  Upwards  of 
two  thousand  friendly  Indians  joined  the  land  ex¬ 
pedition,  and  the  invasion  became  from  a  mili¬ 
tary  standpoint  a  sheer  farce.  The  Seminoles  were 
utterly  unprepared  for  war,  and  their  villages  were 
taken  possession  of,  one  by  one,  without  opposi¬ 
tion.  At  St.  Marks  the  Indians  fled  precipitately, 
and  the  little  Spanish  garrison,  after  a  glimpse  of 
the  investing  force,  asked  only  that  receipts  be 


58  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


given  for  the  movable  property  confiscated.  The 
Seminole  War  was  over  almost  before  it  was  begun. 

But  Jackson  was  not  in  Florida  simply  to  quell 
the  Seminoles.  He  was  there  to  vindicate  the 
honor  and  establish  the  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States.  Hence  there  was  further  work  for  him  to 
do.  The  British  instigators  of  lawlessness  were  to 
be  apprehended;  the  surviving  evidences  of  Span¬ 
ish  authority  were  to  be  obliterated.  Both  objects 
Jackson  attained  with  characteristic  speed  and 
thoroughness.  At  St.  Marks  he  made  Arbuthnot 
a  prisoner;  at  Suwanee  he  captured  another  med¬ 
dler  by  the  name  of  Ambrister;  and  after  a  court- 
martial  he  hanged  one  and  shot  the  other  in  the 
presence  of  the  chieftains  whom  these  men  had 
deceived  iuto  thinking  that  Great  Britain  stood 
ready  to  come  to  the  red  man’s  relief.  Two  Indian 
chiefs  who  were  considered  ringleaders  he  likewise 
executed.  Then,  leaving  St.  Marks  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  two  hundred  troops,  Jackson  advanced 
upon  Pensacola,  the  main  seat  of  Spanish  authority 
in  the  colony. 

From  the  Governor,  Don  Jose  Callava,  now 
came  a  dignified  note  of  protest;  but  the  invader’s 
only  reply  was  an  announcement  of  his  purpose  to 
take  possession  of  the  town,  on  the  ground  that  its 


59 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORmA 

population  had  encouraged  the  Indians  and  given 
them  supplies.  On  May  24,  1818,  the  American 
forces  and  their  allies  marched  in,  unopposed,  and 
the  commander  coolly  apprised  Callava  that  he 
would  “assume  the  government  until  the  transac¬ 
tion  can  be  amicably  adjusted  by  the  two  govern¬ 
ments.”  “If,  contrary  to  my  hopes,”  responded 
the  Spanish  dignitary,  “Your  Excellency  should 
persist  in  your  intention  to  occupy  this  fortress, 
which  I  am  resolved  to  defend  to  the  last  extremity, 
I  shall  repel  force  by  force;  and  he  who  resists 
aggression  can  never  be  considered  an  aggressor. 
God  preserve  Your  Excellency  many  years.”  To 
which  Jackson  replied  that  “resistance  would  be 
a  wanton  sacrifice  of  blood,”  and  that  he  could 
not  but  remark  on  the  Governor’s  inconsistency 
in  presuming  himself  capable  of  repelling  an  army 
which  had  conquered  Indian  tribes  admittedly  too 
powerful  for  the  Spaniards  to  control. 

When  the  Americans  approached  the  fort  in 
which  Callava  had  taken  refuge,  they  were  received 
with  a  volley  which  they  answered,  as  Jackson 
tells  us,  with  “a  nine-pound  piece  and  five  eight- 
inch  howitzers.”  The  Spaniards,  whose  only  pur¬ 
pose  was  to  make  a  decent  show  of  defending  the 
place,  then  ran  up  the  white  flag  and  were  allowed 


60  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

to  march  out  with  the  honors  of  war.  The  victor 
sent  the  Governor  and  soldiery  off  to  Havana,  in¬ 
stalled  a  United  States,  collector  of  customs,  sta¬ 
tioned  a  United  States  garrison  in  the  fort,  and  on 
the  following  day  set  out  on  his  way  to  Tennessee. 

In  a  five  months’  campaign  Jackson  had  estab¬ 
lished  peace  on  the  border,  had  broken  the  power 
of  the  hostile  Indians,  and  had  substantially  con¬ 
quered  Florida.  Not  a  white  man  in  his  army  had 
been  killed  in  battle,  and  not  even  the  most  extrava¬ 
gant  eulogist  could  aver  that  the  war  had  been  a 
great  military  triumph.  None  the  less,  the  people 
—  especially  in  the  West  and  South  —  were  in¬ 
tensely  pleased.  Life  in  the  frontier  regions  would 
now  be  safer;  and  the  acquisition  of  the  coveted 
Florida  country  was  brought  appreciably  nearer. 
The  popular  sentiment  on  the  latter  subject  found 
characteristic  expression  in  a  toast  at  a  banquet 
given  at  Nashville  in  honor  of  the  returning  con¬ 
queror:  “Pensacola  —  Spanish  perfidy  and  Indian 
barbarity  rendered  its  capture  necessary.  May 
our  Government  never  surrender  it  from  the  fear 
of  war!” 

It  was  easy  enough  for  Jackson  to  “take” 
Florida  and  for  the  people  to  rejoice  in  the  exploit. 
To  defend  or  explain  away  the  irregular  features 


61 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLOREDA 

of  the  act  was,  however,  quite  a  different  matter; 
and  that  was  the  task  which  fell  to  the  authorities 
at  Washington.  “The  territory  of  a  friendly  power 
had  been  invaded,  its  officers  deposed,  its  towns 
and  fortresses  taken  possession  of;  two  citizens  of 
another  friendly  and  powerful  nation  had  been 
executed  in  scandalously  summary  fashion,  upon 
suspicion  rather  than  evidence.”  The  Spanish 
Minister,  Onis,  wrathfully  protested  to  the  Sec¬ 
retary  of  State  and  demanded  that  Jackson  be 
punished ;  while  from  London  Rush  quoted  Castle- 
reagh  as  saying  that  English  feeling  was  so  wrought 
up  that  war  could  be  produced  by  the  raising 
of  a  finger. 

Monroe  and  his  Cabinet  were  therefore  given 
many  anxious  days  and  sleepless  nights.  They 
wanted  to  buy  Florida,  not  conquer  it.  They  had 
entertained  no  thought  of  authorizing  the  things 
that  Jackson  had  done.  They  recognized  that  the 
Tennesseean’s  crude  notions  of  international  law 
could  not  be  upheld  in  dealings  with  proud  Euro¬ 
pean  States.  Yet  it  was  borne  in  upon  them  from 
every  side  that  the  nation  approved  what  had  been 
done;  and  the  politically  ambitious  might  well 
think  twice  before  casting  any  slur  upon  the  acts 
of  the  people’s  hero.  Moreover  the  irascibility  of 


62  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


the  conqueror  himself  was  known  and  feared.  Cal¬ 
houn,  the  Secretary  of  War,  who  was  specially 
annoyed  because  his  instructions  had  not  been 
followed,  favored  a  public  censure.  On  the  other 
hand,  John  Quincy  Adams,  the  Secretary  of  State, 
took  the  ground  that  everything  that  Jackson  had 
done  was  “defensive  and  incident  to  his  main  duty 
to  crush  the  Seminoles.”  The  Administration 
finally  reached  the  decision  to  surrender  the  posts 
but  otherwise  to  back  up  the  General,  in  the  hope 
of  convincing  Spain  of  the  futility  of  trying  longer 
to  hold  Florida.  Monroe  explained  the  necessities 
of  the  situation  to  Jackson  as  tactfully  as  he  could, 
leaving  him  under  the  impression  —  which  was 
corrected  only  in  1830  —  that  Crawford,  rather 
than  Calhoun,  was  the  member  of  the  Cabinet 
who  had  held  out  against  him. 

But  the  controversy  spread  beyond  the  Cabinet 
circle.  During  the  winter  of  1818-19  Congress 
took  it  up,  and  a  determined  effort  was  made  to 
carry  a  vote  of  censure.  The  debate  in  the  House 
—  with  galleries  crowded  to  suffocation,  we  are  in¬ 
formed  by  the  National  Intelligencer  —  lasted  four 
weeks  and  was  notable  for  bringing  Clay  for  the 
first  time  publicly  into  opposition  to  the  Tennes¬ 
seean.  The  resolutions  containing  the  censure 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORIDA 


63 


were  voted  down,  however,  by  a  majority  of  almost 
two  to  one.  In  the  Senate  a  select  committee, 
after  a  laborious  investigation,  brought  in  an  un¬ 
favorable  report,  but  no  further  action  was  taken. 

When  the  discussion  in  Congress  was  at  its 
height,  Jackson  himself  appeared  in  Washington. 
Certain  friends  at  the  capital,  fearing  that  his  out¬ 
bursts  of  temper  would  prejudice  his  case,  urged 
him  to  remain  at  home,  but  others  assured  him 
that  his  presence  was  needed.  To  his  neighbor. 

Major  Lewis,  Jackson  confided:  “A  lot  of  d - d 

rascals,  with  Clay  at  their  head  —  and  maybe  with 
Adams  in  the  rear-guard  —  are  setting  up  a  con¬ 
spiracy  against  me.  I’m  going  there  to  see  it  out 
with  them.” 

Until  vindicated  by  the  House  vote,  he  remained 
quietly  in  his  hotel.  After  that  he  felt  free  to  pay 
and  receive  calls,  attend  dinners,  and  accept  the 
tokens  of  regard  which  were  showered  upon  him. 
It  was  now  that  he  paid  his  first  visit  to  a  number 
of  the  larger  eastern  cities.  Philadelphia  feted  him 
four  days.  In  New  York  the  freedom  of  the  city 
was  presented  by  the  mayor  on  a  delicately  in¬ 
scribed  parchment  enclosed  in  a  gold  box,  and 
Tammany  gave  a  great  dinner  at  which  the  lead¬ 
ing  guest,  to  the  dismay  of  the  young  Van  Buren 


64  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


and  other  supporters  of  Crawford,  toasted  DeWitt 
Clinton,  the  leader  of  the  opposing  Republican 
faction.  At  Baltimore  there  was  a  dinner,  and  the 
city  council  asked  the  visitor  to  sit  for  a  picture  by 
Peale  for  the  adornment  of  the  council  room.  Here 
the  General  was  handed  a  copy  of  the  Senate  com¬ 
mittee’s  report,  abounding  in  strictures  on  his 
Seminole  campaign.  Hastening  back  to  Washing¬ 
ton,  he  filled  the  air  with  threats,  and  was  narrowly 
prevented  from  personally  assaulting  a  member  of 
the  investigating  committee.  When,  however,  it 
appeared  that  the  report  was  to  be  allowed  to  re¬ 
pose  for  all  time  on  the  table,  Jackson’s  indigna¬ 
tion  cooled,  and  soon  he  was  on  his  way  back  to 
Tennessee.  With  him  went  the  news  that  Adams 
and  Onis  had  signed  a  treaty  of  “amity,  settle¬ 
ments,  and  limits,  ”  whereby  for  a  consideration  of 
five  million  dollars  the  sovereignty  of  all  Florida 
was  transferred  to  the  United  States.  This  treaty, 
as  Jackson  viewed  it,  was  the  crowning  vindication 
of  the  acts  which  had  been  called  in  question;  and 
public  sentiment  agreed  with  him. 

Dilatory  tactics  on  the  part  of  the  Madrid  Gov¬ 
ernment  delayed  the  actual  transfer  of  the  territory 
more  than  two  years.  After  having  twice  refused, 
Jackson  at  length  accepted  the  governorship  of 


65 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORmA 

Florida,  and  in  the  early  summer  of  1821  he  set  out, 
by  way  of  New  Orleans,  for  his  new  post.  Mrs. 
Jackson  went  with  him,  although  she  had  no  liking 
for  either  the  territory  or  its  people.  On  the  morn¬ 
ing  of  the  17th  of  July  the  formal  transfer  took 
place.  A  procession  was  formed,  consisting  of  such 
American  soldiers  as  were  on  the  spot.  A  ship’s 
band  briskly  played  The  Star  Spangled  Banner  and 
the  new  Governor  rode  proudly  at  the  fore  as  the 
procession  moved  along  Main  Street  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  house,  where  ex-Governor  Callava  with  his 
staff  was  in  waiting.  The  Spanish  flag  was  hauled 
down,  the  American  was  run  up,  the  keys  were 
handed  over,  and  the  remaining  members  of  the 
garrison  were  sent  off  to  the  vessels  which  on  the 
morrow  were  to  bear  them  on  their  way  to  Cuba. 
Only  Callava  and  a  few  other  officials  and  mer¬ 
chants  stayed  behind  to  close  up  matters  of  public 
and  private  business. 

Jackson’s  governorship  was  brief  and  stormy. 
In  the  first  place,  he  had  no  taste  for  administra¬ 
tive  routine,  and  he  found  no  such  opportunity 
as  he  had  hoped  for  to  confer  favors  upon  his 
friends.  “I  am  sure  our  stay  here  will  not  be  long,” 
wrote  Mrs.  Jackson  to  a  brother  in-  early  August. 
“This  office  does  not  suit  my  husband.  .  .  . 


66  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


There  never  was  a  man  more  disappointed  than  he 
has  been.  He  has  not  the  power  to  appoint  one  of 
his  friends.”  In  the  second  place,  the  new  Gover¬ 
nor’s  status  was  wholly  anomalous,  since  Congress 
had  extended  to  the  territory  only  the  revenue  and 
anti-slave-trade  laws,  leaving  Jackson  to  exercise 
in  other  matters  the  rather  vague  powers  of  the 
captain  general  of  Cuba  and  of  the  Spanish  gover¬ 
nors  of  the  Floridas.  And  in  the  third  place,  before 
his  first  twenty -four  hours  were  up,  the  new  execu¬ 
tive  fell  into  a  desperate  quarrel  with  his  prede¬ 
cessor,  a  man  of  sufficiently  similar  temperament 
to  make  the  contest  a  source  of  sport  for  the  gods. 

Jackson  was  prepared  to  believe  the  worst  of  any 
Spaniard,  and  his  relations  with  Callava  grew 
steadily  more  strained  until  finally,  with  a  view  to 
obtaining  possession  of  certain  deeds  and  other 
legal  papers,  he  had  the  irate  dignitary  shut  up 
overnight  in  the  calaboose.  Then  he  fell  upon 
the  judge  of  the  Western  District  of  Florida  for 
issuing  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  the  Spaniard’s 
behalf;  and  all  parties  —  Jackson,  Callava,  and  the 
judge  —  swamped  the  wearied  officials  at  Wash¬ 
ington  with  “statements”  and  “exhibitions”  set¬ 
ting  forth  in‘  lurid  phraseology  their  respective 
views  upon  the  questions  involved.  Callava  finally 


THE  “  CONQUEST  ”  OF  FLORIDA 


67 


carried  his  complaints  to  the  capital  in  person 
and  stirred  the  Spanish  Minister  to  a  fresh  bom¬ 
bardment  of  the  White  House.  Monroe’s  Cabinet 
spent  three  days  discussing  the  subject,  without 
coming  to  a  decision.  Many  were  in  honest  doubt 
as  to  the  principles  of  law  involved;  some  were 
fearful  of  the  political  effects  of  any  stand  they 
might  take;  all  were  inexpressibly  relieved  when, 
late  in  the  year,  word  came  that  “Don  Andrew 
Jackson”  had  resigned  the  governorship  and  was 
proposing  to  retire  to  private  life  at  the  Hermitage. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  DEATH  OP  “KING  CAUCUS” 

On  a  bracing  November  afternoon  in  1821  Jackson 
rode  up  with  his  family  to  the  Hermitage  free  for 
the  first  time  in  thirty-two  years  from  all  responsi- 
bihty  of  civil  and  mihtary  office.  He  was  now 
fifty-four  years  old  and  much  broken  by  exposure 
and  disease;  the  prospect  of  spending  the  remainder 
of  his  days  among  his  hospitable  neighbors  on  the 
banks  of  the  Cumberland  yielded  deep  satisfaction. 
The  home-loving  Mrs.  Jackson,  too,  earnestly  de¬ 
sired  that  he  should  not  again  be  drawn  into  the 
swirl  of  public  life.  “I  do  hope,”  she  wrote  plain¬ 
tively  to  a  niece  soon  after  her  return  to  the  Her¬ 
mitage,  “  they  will  leave  Mr.  Jackson  alone.  He  is 
not  a  well  man  and  never  will  be  unless  they  allow 
him  to  rest.  He  has  done  his  share  for  the  country. 
How  little  time  has  he  had  to  himself  or  for  his  own 
interests  in  the  thirty  years  of  our  wedded  fife. 

In  all  that  time  he  has  not  spent  one-fourth  of  his 

68 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


69 


days  under  his  own  roof.  The  rest  of  the  time 
away,  traveling,  holding  court,  or  at  the  capital  of 
the  country,  or  in  camp,  or  fighting  its  battles,  or 
treating  with  the  Indians;  mercy  knows  what  not.” 

The  intent  to  retire  was  honest  enough  but  not  so 
easy  to  carry  out.  The  conqueror  of  the  Creeks 
and  Seminoles  belonged  not  merely  to  Tennessee 
but  to  the  entire  Southwest;  the  victor  of  New  Or¬ 
leans  belonged  to  the  Nation.  Already  there  was 
talk —  “talk  everlastingly,”  Mrs.  Jackson  tells  us 
in  the  letter  just  quoted  —  of  making  the  hero 
President.  Jackson,  furthermore,  was  not  the  type 
of  man  to  sit  idly  by  while  great  scenes  were  en¬ 
acted  on  the  political  stage.  When  he  returned 
from  Florida,  he  faced  the  future  with  the  weary 
vision  of  a  sick  man.  Rest  and  reviving  strength, 
however,  put  the  old  vim  into  his  words  and  acts. 
In  two  years  he  was  a  second  time  taking  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  in  three  he  was  con¬ 
testing  for  the  presidency,  and  in  seven  he  was 
moving  into  the  White  House. 

The  glimpses  which  one  gets  of  the  General’s 
surroundings  and  habits  during  his  brief  interval  of 
repose  create  a  pleasing  impression.  Following  the 
winding  turnpike  westward  from  Nashville  a  dis¬ 
tance  of  nine  or  ten  miles  and  rumbling  across  the 


70  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


old  wooden  bridge  over  Stone  River,  a  visitor 
would  find  himself  at  Hermitage  Farm.  The  estate 
contained  at  that  time  somewhat  more  than  a 
thousand  acres,  of  which  four  hundred  were  under 
cultivation  and  the  remainder  luxuriant  forest. 
Negro  cabins  stood  here  and  there,  and  in  one 
corner  was  a  little  brick  church  which  the  proprie¬ 
tor  had  built  for  the  solace  of  his  wife.  In  the 
center  of  a  well-kept  lawn,  flanked  with  cedars  and 
oaks,  stood  the  family  mansion,  the  Hermitage, 
whose  construction  had  been  begun  at  the  close 
of  the  Seminole  W'ar  in  1819.  The  building  was 
of  brick,  two  stories  high,  with  a  double  wooden 
piazza  in  both  front  and  rear.  The  rooms  were 
small  and  simply  furnished,  the  chief  adornment 
being  portraits  of  the  General  and  his  friends, 
though  later  was  added  the  familiar  painting  of 
Mrs.  Jackson.  Lavasseur,  w’ho  as  private  secre¬ 
tary  of  La  Fayette  visited  the  place  in  1825,  was 
greatly  surprised  to  find  a  person  of  Jackson’s  re¬ 
nown  living  in  a  structure  which  in  France  would 
hardly  suffice  for  the  porter’s  lodge  at  the  chateau 
of  a  man  of  similar  standing.  But  western  Ten¬ 
nessee  afforded  nothing  finer,  and  Jackson  con¬ 
sidered  himself  palatially  housed. 

Life  on  the  Hermitage  estate  had  its  full  share 


MARQUIS  DE  LAFAYETTE 


Painting  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse.  In  the  Mayor’s  office,  owned  by  the 
Corporation  of  the  City  of  New  York.  Reproduced  by  courtesy  of 
the  Municipal  Art  Commission  of  the  City  of  New  York. 

“While  Morse  w’as  painting  the  portrait  of  Lafayette  in  Washing¬ 
ton,  in  1825,  he  received  new's  of  the  death  of  his  wdfe.  He  sent  a 
message  to  Lafayette  saying  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to 
go  on  with  the  work  at  present  and  received  the  following  note  of 
sympathy : 

“‘I  have  feared  to  intrude  upon  you,  my  dear  sir,  but  want  to 
tell  you  how  deeply  I  sympathise  in  your  grief — a  grief  of  which 
nobody  can  better  than  me  appreciate  the  cruel  feelings.  You  will 
hear  from  me,  as  soon  as  I  find  myself  again  near  you,  to  finish  the 
work  you  have  so  w’ell  begun.  Accept  my  affectionate  and  mourn¬ 
ful  sentiment. — Lafayette. 

“‘February  11,  1825.’ 

“This  portrait  was  finished  later  on,  and  now  hangs  in  the  City 
Hall  in  New  York.” — Edw^ard  L.  Morse,  Scribner's  Magazine,  March, 
1912. 


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THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


71 


of  the  charm  of  the  old  South.  After  breakfasting 
at  eight  or  nine,  the  proprietor  spent  the  day  riding 
over  his  broad  acres,  giving  instructions  to  his 
workmen,  keeping  up  his  accounts,  chatting  with 
neighbors  and  passers-by,  and  devouring  the  news¬ 
papers  with  a  zeal  born  of  unremitting  interest  in 
public  affairs.  After  the  evening  meal  the  family 
gathered  on  the  cool  piazza  in  summer,  or  around 
the  blazing  hearth  of  the  great  living  room  in 
winter,  and  spent  the  hours  until  the  early  bed¬ 
time  in  telling  stories,  discussing  local  and  national 
happenings,  or  listening  to  the  news  of  distant 
localities  as  retailed  by  the  casual  visitor.  The 
hospitality  of  the  Jackson  home  was  proverbial. 
The  General’s  army  friends  came  often  to  see  him. 
Political  leaders  and  advisers  flocked  to  the  place. 
Clergymen  of  all  denominations  were  received  with 
special  warmth  by  Mrs.  Jackson.  Eastern  men  of 
distinction,  when  traveling  to  the  West,  came  to 
pay  their  respects.  No  foreigner  who  penetrated 
as  far  as  the  Mississippi  Valley  would  think  of  re¬ 
turning  to  his  native  land  without  calling  upon  the 
picturesque  flgure  at  the  Hermitage. 

Chief  among  visitors  from  abroad  was  La  Fay¬ 
ette.  The  two  men  met  in  Washington  in  1824 
and  formed  an  instant  attachment  for  each  other. 


72  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


The  great  French  patriot  was  greeted  at  Nashville 
the  following  year  with  a  public  reception  and 
banquet  at  which  Jackson,  as  the  first  citizen  of  the 
State,  did  the  honors.  Afterwards  he  spent  some 
days  in  the  Jackson  home,  and  one  can  imagine  the 
avidity  with  which  the  two  men  discussed  the 
American  and  French  revolutions,  Napoleon,  and 
the  late  New  Orleans  campaign. 

Jackson  was  first  and  last  a  democrat.  He  never 
lost  touch  with  the  commonest  people.  Neverthe¬ 
less  there  was  always  something  of  the  grand 
manner  about  him.  On  formal  and  ceremonial 
occasions  he  bore  himself  with  becoming  dignity 
and  even  grace;  in  dress  he  was,  as  a  rule,  punc¬ 
tilious.  During  his  years  at  the  Hermitage  he  was 
accustomed  to  ride  about  in  a  carriage  drawn  by 
four  spirited  iron-gray  horses,  attended  by  servants 
in  blue  hvery  with  brass  buttons,  glazed  hats,  and 
silver  bands.  “A  very  big  man,  sir,”  declared  an 
old  hotel  waiter  to  the  visiting  biographer  Parton 
long  afterwards.  “We  had  many  big  men,  sir,  in 
Nashville  at  that  time,  but  General  Jackson  was 
the  biggest  man  of  them  all.  I  knew  the  General, 
sir;  but  he  always  had  so  many  people  around  him 
when  he  came  to  town  that  it  was  not  often  I  could 
get  a  chance  to  say  anything  to  him.” 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


73 


The  question  as  to  who  first  proposed  Jackson 
for  the  presidency  will  probably  never  be  answered. 
The  victory  at  New  Orleans  evidently  brought  the 
idea  into  many  minds.  As  the  campaign  of  1816 
was  beginning,  Aaron  Burr  wrote  to  his  son-in-law 
that,  if  the  country  wanted  a  President  of  firmness 
and  decision,  “  that  man  is  Andrew  Jackson.”  Not 
apparently  until  1821  was  the  suggestion  put  for¬ 
ward  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  Jackson  himself  to 
take  note  of  it.  Even  then  he  scoffed  at  it.  To  a 
friend  who  assured  him  that  he  was  not  “safe  from 
the  presidency  ”  in  1824,  he  replied :  “  I  really  hope 

you  don’t  think  that  I  am  d - fool  enough  to 

believe  that.  No  sir;  I  may  be  pretty  well  satisfied 
with  myself  in  some  things,  but  am  not  vain  enough 
for  that.”  On  another  occasion  he  declared:  “No 
sir;  I  know  what  I  am  fit  for.  I  can  command  a 
body  of  men  in  a  rough  way;  but  I  am  not  fit 
to  be  President.” 

It  really  mattered  little  what  the  General  himself 
thought.  His  Tennessee  friends  had  conceived  the 
idea  that  he  could  be  elected,  and  already  they 
were  at  work  to  realize  this  vision.  One  of  the 
most  active  was  John  H.  Eaton,  who  had  lately 
written  the  hero’s  biography  down  to  the  return 
from  New  Orleans.  Another  of  his  friends  was 


74  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Governor  Blount.  John  Rhea,  Felix  Grundy,  and 
half  a  dozen  more  helped.  But  the  man  who 
really  made  Jackson  President  was  his  near  neigh¬ 
bor  and  his  inseparable  companion  of  later  years, 
William  B.  Lewis. 

In  a  day  of  astute  politicians  Major  Lewis  was 
one  of  the  cleverest.  He  knew  Jackson  more  in¬ 
timately  than  did  any  other  man  and  could  sway 
him  readily  to  his  purposes  in  all  matters  upon 
which  the  General’s  mind  was  not  absolutely  made 
up.  He  had  a  wide  acquaintance  over  the  country ; 
he  was  possessed  of  ample  means  and  leisure;  he 
was  an  adept  at  pulling  judiciously  laid  and  well- 
concealed  political  wires;  he  fully  understood  the 
ideas,  aspirations,  and  feelings  of  the  classes  whose 
support  was  necessary  to  the  success  of  his  plans. 
In  the  present  juncture  he  worked  on  two  main 
lines:  first,  to  arouse  Jackson’s  own  State  to  a 
feverish  enthusiasm  for  the  candidacy  of  its  “favor¬ 
ite  son,”  and,  second,  to  start  apparently  spon¬ 
taneous  Jackson  movements  in  various  sections  of 
the  country,  in  such  a  manner  that  their  cumula¬ 
tive  effect  would  be  to  create  an  impression  of  a 
nation-wide  and  irresistible  demand  for  the  victor 
of  New  Orleans  as  a  candidate. 

Tennessee  was  easily  stirred.  That  the  General 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


75 


merited  the  highest  honor  within  the  gift  of  the 
people  required  no  argument  among  his  fellow 
citizens.  The  first  open  steps  were  taken  in  Janu¬ 
ary,  1822,  when  the  Gazette  and  other  Nashville 
papers  sounded  the  clarion  call.  The  response  was 
overwhelming;  and  when  Jackson  himself,  in  reply 
to  a  letter  from  Grundy,  diplomatically  declared 
that  he  would  “neither  seek  nor  shun”  the  presi¬ 
dency,  his  candidacy  was  regarded  as  an  estab¬ 
lished  fact.  On  the  20th  of  July,  the  Legislature^ 
of  the  State  placed  him  formally  in  nomination. 
Meanwhile  Lewis  had  gone  to  North  Carolina 
to  work  up  sentiment  there,  and  by  the  close  of 
the  year  assurances  of  support  were  coming  in 
satisfactorily.  From  being  skeptical  or  at  best  in¬ 
different,  Jackson  himself  had  come  to  share  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  assiduous  friends. 

The  Jackson  managers  banked  from  the  first 
upon  two  main  assets:  one  was  the  exceptional 
popularity  of  their  candidate,  especially  in  the 
South  and  West;  the  other  was  a  political  situation 
so  muddled  that  at  the  coming  election  it  might  be 
made  to  yield  almost  any  result.  For  upwards  of  a 
generation  the  presidency  and  vice  presidency  had 
been  at  the  disposal  of  a  working  alliance  of  Vir¬ 
ginia  and  New  York,  buttressed  by  such  support 


76  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

as  was  needed  from  other  controllable  States. 
Virginia  regularly  got  the  presidency.  New  York 
(except  at  the  time  of  the  Clinton  defection  of 
1812)  the  vice  presidency.  After  the  second  elec¬ 
tion  of  Monroe,  in  1820,  however,  there  were  mul¬ 
tiplying  signs  that  this  aflSliation  of  interests  had 
reached  the  end  of  its  tether.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Virginia  dynasty  had  run  out;  at  all  events  Vir¬ 
ginia  had  no  candidate  to  offer  and  was  preparing 
to  turn  its  support  to  a  Georgian  of  Virginian  birth, 
William  H.  Crawford.  In  the  second  place,  party 
fines  had  totally  disappeared,  and  the  unifying  and 
stabilizing  influences  of  party  names  and  affilia¬ 
tions  could  not  be  counted  on  to  keep  down  the 
number  of  independent  candidacies.  Already,  in¬ 
deed,  by  the  end  of  1822  there  were  a  half-dozen 
avowed  candidates,  three  of  whom  had  seats  at 
Monroe’s  Cabinet  table.  Each  was  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  a  section  or  of  a  distinct  interest,  rather  than 
of  a  party,  and  no  one  was  likely  to  feel  under  any 
compulsion  to  withdraw  from  the  race  at  a  pre¬ 
liminary  stage. 

New  England  offered  John  Quincy  Adams.  She 
did  so  with  reluctance,  for  the  old  Federalist  ele¬ 
ments  had  never  forgiven  him  for  his  desertion  to 
the  Republican  camp  in  the  days  of  the  embargo. 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


77 


while  the  back  country  democracy  had  always 
looked  upon  him  as  an  alien.  But  he  was  the  sec¬ 
tion’s  only  available  man  —  indeed,  the  only  prom¬ 
ising  candidate  from  any  Northern  State.  His 
frigid  manner  was  against  him.  But  he  had  had 
a  long  and  honorable  diplomatic  career;  he  was 
winning  new  distinction  as  Secretary  of  State;  and 
he  could  expect  to  profit  both  by  the  feeling  that 
the  North  was  entitled  to  the  presidency  and  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  the  only  candidate  from  a 
non-slave  State. 

Crawford,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  the 
heir  apparent  of  the  Virginia  dynasty.  Formerly 
this  would  have  meant  a  clear  road  to  the  White 
House.  Even  now  it  was  supposed  to  be  a  tremen¬ 
dous  asset;  and  notwithstanding  the  Georgian’s  per¬ 
sonal  unpopularity  in  most  parts  of  the  country,  his 
advantages  as  the  “regular  candidate,”  coupled 
with  the  long  and  careful  campaign  carried  on  in 
his  behalf,  were  expected  by  many  keen  observers 
to  pull  him  through. 

A  third  candidate  within  the  Cabinet  circle 
was  Calhoun,  Secretary  of  War.  Like  Crawford, 
he  could  expect  to  reach  the  presidency  only 
by  winning  the  support  of  one  or  more  of  the 
greater  Northern  States.  For  a  while  he  had 


78  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


hopes  of  Pennsylvania.  When  it  appeared  that 
he  had  nothing  to  look  for  in  this  direction,  he 
resigned  himself  to  the  conclusion  that,  since  he 
was  yet  hardly  forty  years  of  age,  his  time  had 
not  yet  come. 

’'For  the  first  time,  the  West  now  put  forward 
candidates^  two  of  them.  Clay  and  Jackson. 
Clay  was  a  Kentuckian,  of  Virginian  birth  and 
breeding,  in  whom  were  mingled  the  leading  char¬ 
acteristics  of  both  his  native  and  his  adopted  sec¬ 
tion.  He  was  “impetuous,  wilful,  high-spirited, 
daring,  jealous,  but,  withal,  a  lovable  man.”  For 
a  decade  he  had  been  the  most  conspicuous  figure 
in  the  national  House  of  Representatives.  He  had 
raised  the  speakership  to  a  high  level  of  impor¬ 
tance  and  through  its  power  had  fashioned  a  set  of 
issues,  reflective  of  western  and  middle-state  ideas, 
upon  which  the  politics  of  the  country  turned  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  As  befitted  a 
“great  conciliator,”  he  had  admirers  in  every 
corner  of  the  land.  Whether  his  strength  could 
be  suflBciently  massed  to  yield  electoral  results 
remained  to  be  discovered. 

But  what  of  Jackson.!*  If,  as  one  writer  has  said. 
Clay  was  one  of  the  favorites  of  the  West,  Jackson 
was  the  West  itself.  “While  Clay  was  able  to 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


79 


voice,  with  statesmanlike  ability,  the  demand  for 
economic  legislation  to  promote  her  interests,  and 
while  he  exercised  an  extraordinary  fascination 
by  his  personal  magnetism  and  his  eloquence,  he 
never  became  the  hero  of  the  great  masses  of  the 
West;  he  appealed  rather  to  the  more  intelligent  — 
to  the  men  of  business  and  of  property.  *  *  Jackson, 
however,  was  the  very  personification  of  the  con¬ 
tentious,  self-confident,  nationalistic  democracy  of 
the  interior.’  He  could  make  no  claim  to  states¬ 
manship.  He  had  held  no  important  legislative  or 
administrative  position  in  his  State,  and  his  brief 
career  in  Congress  was  entirely  without  distinction. 
He  was  a  man  of  action,  not  a  theorist,  and  his 
views  on  public  questions  were,  even  as  late  as 
1820,  not  clear  cut  or  widely  known.  In  a  general 
way  he  represented  the  school  of  Randolph  and 
Monroe,  rather  than  that  of  Jefferson  and  Madison. 
He  was  a  moderate  protectionist,  because  he  be¬ 
lieved  that  domestic  manufactures  would  make 
the  United  States  independent  of  European  coun¬ 
tries  in  time  of  war.  On  the  Bank  and  internal 
improvements  his  mind  was  not  made  up,  although 
he  was  inclined  to  regard  both  as  unconstitutional. 

Jackson’s  attitude  toward  the  leading  political 

*  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  p.  188. 


80  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


personalities  of  the  time  left  no  room  for  doubt. 
He  supported  Monroe  in  1816  and  in  1820  and 
continued  on  friendly  terms  with  him  notwith¬ 
standing  the  President’s  failure  on  certain  occa¬ 
sions  to  follow  his  advice.  Among  the  new  con¬ 
tenders  for  the  presidency  the  one  he  disliked  most 
was  Crawford.  “As  to  Wm.  H.  Crawford,”  he 
wrote  to  a  friend  in  1821,  “you  know  my  opinion. 
I  would  support  the  Devil  first.”  Clay,  also,  he 
disliked  —  partly  out  of  recollection  of  the  Ken¬ 
tuckian’s  censorious  attitude  during  the  Seminole 
debates,  partly  because  of  the  natural  rivalry  be¬ 
tween  the  two  men  for  the  favor  of  the  western 
people.  Clay  fully  reciprocated  by  refusing  to 
believe  that  “killing  2500  Englishmen  at  New 
Orleans  ”  qualified  Jackson  for  the  “  various  difficult 
and  complicated  duties  of  the  chief  magistracy.” 
Toward  Adams,  Jackson  was  not  ill  disposed; 
before  he  decided  to  permit  his  own  name  to  be 
used,  he  said  that  he  would  give  his  support  in 
1824  to  the  New  Englander  —  unless  one  other 
person  should  be  brought  forward.  That  person 
was  Calhoun,  for  whom,  among  all  the  candidates 
of  the  day,  he  thus  far  had  the  warmest  regard. 

Among  so  many  aspirants  —  and  not  all  have 
been  mentioned  —  how  should  the  people  make  up 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


81 


their  minds?  In  earlier  days  the  party  caucuses 
in  Congress  would  have  eliminated  various  candi¬ 
dates,  and  the  voters  would  have  found  themselves 
called  upon  to  make  a  choice  between  probably  but 
two  opponents.  (The  caucus  was  an  informal,  vol¬ 
untary  gathering  of  the  party  members  in  the  two 
houses  to  canvass  the  political  situation  and  decide 
upon  the  men  to  be  supported  by  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  party  for  the  presidency  and  vice  presi¬ 
dency.  In  the  lack  of  other  nominating  machin¬ 
ery  it  served  a  useful  purpose,  and  nominations  had 
been  commonly  made  in  this  manner  from  1796  on¬ 
wards.  There  were  obvious  objections  to  the  plan 
—  chiefly  that  the  authority  exercised  was  assumed 
rather  than  delegated  —  and,  as  the  campaign  of 
1824  approached,  opposition  flared  up  in  a  very 
impressive  manner.! 

Crawford,  as  the  “regular”  candidate,  wanted 
a  caucus,  and  his  adherents  supported  him  in 
the  wish.  But  all  his  rivals  were  opposed  to  it, 
partly  because  they  felt  that  they  could  not  gain  a 
caucus  nomination,  partly  because  their  followers 
generally  objected  to  the  system.  “  King  Caucus  ” 
became  the  target  of  general  criticism.  News¬ 
papers,  except  those  for  Crawford,  denounced  the 
old  system;  legislatures  passed  resolutions  against 


82  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


it;  public  meetings  condemned  it;  ponderous 
pamphlets  were  hurled  at  it;rthe  campaigns  of 
Jackson  and  Clay,  in  particular,  found  their  key¬ 
note  in  hostility  toward  it.  /  Failing  to  perceive 
that  under  the  changed  circumstances  a  caucus 
nomination  might  become  a  liability  rather  than 
an  asset,  the  Crawford  element  pushed  its  plans, 
and  on  February  14,  1824,  a  eaucus  —  destined  to 
be  the  last  of  the  kind  in  the  country  —  was  duly 
held.  It  proved  a  fiasco,  for  it  was  attended 
by  only  sixty-six  persons.  Crawford  was  “recom¬ 
mended  to  the  people  of  the  United  States”  by  an 
almost  unanimous  vote,  but  the  only  effect  was 
to  infuse  fresh  energy  into  the  campaigns  of  his 
leading  competitorsJ  “The  caucus, ”  wrote  Daniel 
Webster  to  his  brother  Ezekiel,  “has  hurt  nobody 
but  its  friends.” 

For  the  first  time  in  eight  years  the  country 
witnessed  a  real  presidential  contest.  The  cam¬ 
paign,  none  the  less,  was  one  in  which  the  candi¬ 
dates  themselves  took  but  little  active  part.  The 
days  of  “swinging  around  the  circle”  had  not  yet 
dawned  in  our  national  politics,  nor  had  even  those 
of  the  “front-porch”  campaign.  Adams  made  no 
effort  either  to  be  nominated  or  to  be  elected,  re¬ 
taining  throughout  the  contest  that  austere  reserve 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


83 


in  public  manner  which  contrasted  so  singularly 
with  his  amiability  and  good  humor  in  private  life. 
Jackson  remained  quietly  at  the  Hermitage,  reply¬ 
ing  to  correspondents  and  acknowledging  expres¬ 
sions  of  support,  but  leaving  to  his  managers  the 
work  of  winning  the  voters.  Clay,  whose  oratorical 
gifts  would  have  made  him  an  invincible  twentieth 
century  campaigner,  contented  himself  with  a  few 
interviews  and  speeches.  The  candidate  who  nor¬ 
mally  would  have  taken  most  active  personal  part 
in  the  campaign  was  Crawford.  But  in  August, 
1823  —  six  months  before  the  caucus  nomination 
—  he  was  stricken  with  paralysis  and  rendered 
speechless,  almost  bhnd,  and  practically  helpless. 
For  months  he  hovered  between  life  and  death  in  a 
“mansion”  on  the  outskirts  of  Washington,  while 
his  friends  labored  to  conceal  the  seriousness  of  his 
condition  and  to  keep  his  canvass  going.  Gradu¬ 
ally  he  rallied;  but  his  powerful  frame  was  shat¬ 
tered,  and  even  when  the  caucus  discharged  its 
appointed  task  of  nominating  him,  the  politicians 
were  cold-heartedly  speculating  upon  who  would 
receive  the  “old  republican”  support  if  he  should 
die.  He  recovered  and  lived  ten  years;  but  his 
chances  of  the  presidency  were  much  diminished 
by  his  ill  fortune.  “He  had  fallen  with  his  face 


84  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


toward  the  goal,  with  his  eyes  and  his  heart 
fixed  upon  it.” 

As  the  canvass  progressed,  Jackson  steadily 
gained.  His  election  to  the  United  States  Senate, 
in  the  autumn  of  1823,  over  a  stanch  supporter  of 
Crawford  showed  that  his  own  State  was  acting  in 
good  faith  when  it  proposed  him  for  the  higher 
position.  Clever  propaganda  turned  Pennsylvania 
“Jackson  mad”;  whereupon  Calhoun,  with  an  eye 
to  the  future,  sought  an  alliance  with  his  competi¬ 
tor.  The  upshot  was  that  a  convention  held  at 
Harrisburg  in  March,  1824,  nominated  Jackson 
almost  unanimously  and  named  Calhoun  for  the 
vice  presidency.  Hostility  to  the  caucus  became 
also  a  great  asset.  Tariff,  internal  improvements, 
and  foreign  policy  were  discussed  in  the  campaign, 
but  thefreal  issue  was  the  manner  of  selecting  the 
President.!  Should  he  continue  to  be  chosen  by  a 
combination  of  Congressmen,  or  should  the  people 
take  matters  into  their  own  hands?  Tlmpatience 
with  the  caucus  system  showed  itself  in  numerous 
nominations  of  Clay,  Adams,  and  Jackson  by  sun¬ 
dry  state  conventions,  legislatures,  and  other  more 
or  less  oflScial  bodiesT'-  The  supporters  of  Jack- 
son,  in  particular,  made  “down  with  the  caucus” 
their  rallying  cry  and  found  it  tremendously 


THE  DEATH  OF  »  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


85 


effective.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  campaign 
the  politicians,  aside  from  Lewis  and  his  cowork¬ 
ers,  were  unwilling  to  believe  that  Jackson  could 
be  elected.  Later,  however,  they  were  forced  to 
acknowledge  his  strength,  and  at  the  end  the 
fight  was  really  between  Jackson  and  the  field, 
rather  than  between  Crawford  and  the  field  as 
had  been  anticipated. 

At  the  beginning  of  November,  Jackson,  accom¬ 
panied  by  his  wife  and  traveling  in  a  handsome 
coach  drawn  by  four  of  the  finest  Hermitage 
thoroughbreds,  set  out  for  Washington.  Hostile 
scribblers  lost  no  time  in  contrasting  this  display  of 
grandeur  with  the  republican  simplicity  of  Jeffer¬ 
son,  who  rode  from  Monticello  to  the  capital  on  the 
back  of  a  plantation  nag  without  pedigree.  But 
Jackson  was  not  perturbed.  At  various  points 
on  the  road  he  received  returns  from  the  elections, 
and  when  after  four  or  five  weeks  the  equipage 
drew  up  in  the  capital  Jackson  knew  the  general 
result.  Calhoun  had  been  elected  vice  president 
with  little  opposition.  But  no  one  of  the  presiden¬ 
tial  candidates  had  obtained  an  electoral  majority, 
and  the  task  of  choosing  among  the  highest  three 
would,  under  the  terms  of  the  Constitution,  de¬ 
volve  upon  the  House  of  Representatives.  When, 


86  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


by  the  middle  of  December,  the  returns  were  all  in, 
it  was  found  that  Jackson  would  have  99  votes  in 
the  electoral  college,  Adams  84,  Crawford  41,  and 
Clay  37. 

The  country  awaited  the  9th  of  February  —  the 
day  of  the  official  count  —  with  great  interest.. 
Clay  was,  of  course,  eliminated.  Crawford  like¬ 
wise,  by  reason  of  his  poor  showing  and  the  pre¬ 
carious  state  of  his  health,  could  not  expect  to  do 
more  than  hold  his  own.  The  contest  had  nar¬ 
rowed  to  Jackson  and  Adams,  with  Clay  holding 
the  balance.  There  were  twenty-four  States  in  the 
Union;  the  successful  candidate  must  command 
the  votes  of  thirteen. 

The  choice  that  Clay  now  had  to  make  was  dis¬ 
tasteful,  although  not  really  difficult.  Jackson  had 
obtained  a  substantial  plurality  of  the  electoral 
votes;  he  probably  had  a  plurality  of  the  popular 
vote,  although  in  the  six  States  in  which  the  elec¬ 
tors  were  chosen  by  the  Legislature  the  popular 
vote  could  not  be  computed;  the  Legislature  of 
Clay’s  own  State  called  upon  the  Congressmen 
from  the  State  to  give  the  Tennesseean  its  support. 
But  Clay  had  felt  very  bitterly  about  the  candi¬ 
dacy  of  “this  military  chieftain.”  Furthermore, 
he  knew  that  if  Jackson  were  to  be  elected,  the 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


87 


country  would  not  be  disposed  to  take  his  successor 
from  the  West.  Besides,  Calhoun  had  put  himself 
in  line  for  the  Jacksonian  succession.  On  the  other 
hand,  Clay  was  not  without  grievances  against 
Adams.  The  New  Englander  had  captured  the  cov¬ 
eted  Secretaryship  of  State  in  Monroe’s  Cabinet; 
he  had  taken  no  pains  to  conceal  his  dislike  of  the 
Kentucky  “  gamester  in  politics  ” ;  his  foreign  policy 
had  been  the  target  of  many  of  Clay’s  keenest 
oratorical  thrusts.  But  the  country  would  be  safe 
in  his  hands;  and  a  popular  westerner  might  well 
hope  to  become  his  successor.  The  decision  in 
favor  of  Adams  was  reached  with  little  delay  and 
was  confided  to  intimates  almost  two  months  before 
the  House  balloted.  Though  Clay’s  choice  did  not 
insure  the  election  of  Adams,  it  made  that  outcome 
extremely  probable. 

As  the  weeks  passed,  the  situation  became  more 
tense.  All  the  principals  in  the  drama  were  at  the 
capital  —  Adams  as  Secretary  of  State,  Crawford 
as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Clay  as  Speaker  of 
the  House,  Jackson  as  Senator  —  and  the  city  was 
filled  with  followers  who  busied  themselves  in  pro¬ 
posing  combinations  and  making  promises  which, 
for  the  greater  part,  could  not  be  traced  to  the 
candidates  themselves.  O’Neil’s  Tavern  —  graced 


88  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


by  the  vivacious  “Peggy,”  who,  as  Mrs.  John  H. 
Eaton,  was  later  to  upset  the  equilibrium  of  the 
Jackson  Administration  —  and  other  favorite  lodg¬ 
ing  houses  were  the  scenes  of  midnight  conferences, 
intimate  conversations,  and  mysterious  comings 
and  goings  which  kept  their  oldest  and  most  sophis¬ 
ticated  frequenters  on  the  alert.  ‘‘Incedo  super 
ignes  —  I  walk  over  fires,  ”  confided  the  strait¬ 
laced  Adams  to  his  diary,  and  not  without  reason. 
A  group  of  Clay’s  friends  came  to  the  New  Eng¬ 
lander’s  room  to  urge  in  somewhat  veiled  language 
that  their  chief  be  promised,  in  return  for  his 
support,  a  place  in  the  Cabinet.  •  A  Missouri  repre¬ 
sentative  who  held  the  balance  of  power  in  his 
delegation  plainly  offered  to  swing  the  State  for 
Adams  if  the  latter  would  agree  to  retain  a  brother 
on  the  federal  bench  and  be  “reasonable”  in  the 
matter  of  patronage. 

By  the  last  week  of  January  it  was  rather  gen¬ 
erally  understood  that  Clay’s  strength  would  be 
thrown  to  Adams.  Up  to  this  time  the  Jackson 
men  had  refused  to  believe  that  such  a  thing  could 
happen.  But  evidence  had  been  piled  mountain- 
high  ;  adherents  of  both  allies  were  openly  boasting 
of  the  arrangements  that  had  been  made.  The 
Jacksonians  were  furious,  and  the  air  was  filled 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


89 


with  recriminations.  On  January  28,  1825,  an 
anonymous  letter  in  the  Columbian  Observer  of 
Philadelphia  made  the  direct  charge  that  the 
agents  of  Clay  had  offered  the  Kentuckian’s  sup¬ 
port  to  both  Jackson  and  Adams  in  return  for  an 
appointment  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  that,  while 
the  friends  of  Jackson  would  not  descend  to  “such 
mean  barter  and  sale,  ”  a  bargain  with  the  Adams 
forces  had  been  duly  closed.  Clay’s  rage  was  un¬ 
governable.  Through  the  columns  of  the  National 
Intelligencer  he  pronounced  his  unknown  antago¬ 
nist  “a  base  and  infamous  calumniator,  a  dastard 
and  a  liar,  ”  called  upon  him  to  “  unveil  himself,  ” 
and  declared  that  he  would  hold  him  responsible 
“  to  all  the  laws  which  govern  and  regulate  men 
of  honor.” 

Two  days  later  an  obscure  Pennsylvania  Con¬ 
gressman  by  the  name  of  George  Kremer  tendered 
his  respects  to  “the  Honorable  H.  Clay,”  avowed 
his  authorship  of  the  communication  in  question, 
offered  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  charges,  and  closed 
sententiously  by  affirming  that  as  a  representative 
of  the  people  he  would  “not  fear  to  ‘cry  aloud  and 
spare  not’  when  their  rights  and  privileges  are  at 
stake.”  The  matter  was  serious,  but  official  Wash¬ 
ington  could  hardly  repress  a  smile.  Kremer  was 


90  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


a  thoroughly  honest  but  grossly  illiterate  rustic 
busybody  who  thus  far  had  attracted  the  capital’s 
attention  mainly  by  reason  of  his  curiously  cut 
leopard-skin  overcoat.  The  real  author  of  the 
charge  seems  to  have  been  James  Buchanan,  and 
Kremer  was  simple-minded  and  credulous  enough 
to  be  made  the  catspaw  in  the  business.  Clay 
was  taken  aback.  Kremer  significantly  made  no 
reference  to  the  “code  of  honor”;  and  since  a  duel 
with  such  a  personage  would  be  an  absurdity. 
Clay  substituted  a  request  that  the  House  make 
an  immediate  investigation  of  the  charges.  A 
committee  of  seven  was  appointed.  But  when  it 
summoned  Kremer  to  give  his  testimony,  he  re¬ 
fused  to  appear,  on  the  ground  —  which  in  the 
present  instance  was  a  mere  pretext  —  that  the 
House  had  no  jurisdiction  over  the  conduct  of 
its  members  outside  the  chamber. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  Kremer  was  only 
a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  Jackson  managers.  He 
admitted  privately  to  members  of  the  committee 
that  he  did  not  write  the  letter  in  the  Observer,  and 
it  was  plain  enough  that  he  did  not  understand  its 
purport.  His  promise  to  substantiate  its  contents 
was  made  in  a  moment  of  surprise,  because  some¬ 
body  had  neglected  to  coach  him  on  the  point. 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS 


91 


Finding  that  it  could  make  no  headway,  the  com¬ 
mittee  reported  the  fact,  on  the  9th  of  February, 
and  the  investigation  was  dropped.  This  was  pre¬ 
cisely  what  the  Jackson  managers  wanted.  What¬ 
ever  happened,  Jackson  would  be  the  gainer.  “If 
Clay  transferred  his  following  to  Adams,  the 
charge  would  gain  credence  with  the  masses;  if  he 
were  not  made  Secretary  of  State,  it  would  be 
alleged  that  honest  George  Kremer  (an  ardent 
Jacksonian)  had  exposed  the  bargain  and  pre¬ 
vented  its  consummation.”  * 

Was  this  charge  of  a  “corrupt  bargain”  well 
founded?  For  a  generation  every  public  man  had 
views  on  that  subject  for  which  he  was  ready  to 
fight;  mid-century  and  later  historians  came  to 
conclusions  of  the  most  contradictory  nature.  The 
pros  and  cons  are  too  complicated  to  be  presented 
here,  but  certain  things  are  fairly  clear.  In  two 
elaborate  speeches  Clay  marshaled  evidence  that 
before  leaving  Kentucky  he  decided  to  support 
Adams  in  preference  to  Jackson  and  Crawford. 
This  evidence  did  not  convince  the  Jacksonians; 
but  it  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to  do  so, 
and  nowadays  it  looks  to  be  unimpeachable.  It  is 
certain  that  the  friends  of  Clay  approached  the 

‘Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  p.  268. 


92  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Adams  managers  with  a  view  to  a  working  agree¬ 
ment  involving  the  Secretaryship  of  State;  but  it 
is  equally  clear  that  the  Jackson  and  Crawford 
men  solicited  Clay’s  support  “by  even  more 
unblushing  offers  of  political  reward  than  those 
alleged  against  Adams.”  Finally  it  is  known  that 
Adams  gave  some  explicit  preelection  pledges,  and 
that  by  doing  so  he  drew  some  votes;  but  on  the 
subject  of  an  alliance  with  Clay  he  is  not  known  to 
have  gone  further  than  to  say  to  a  delegation  of 
Clay  supporters  that  if  elected  by  western  votes 
he  would  naturally  look  to  the  West  for  much  of 
the  support  which  his  Administration  would  need. 

At  noon,  on  the  9th  of  February,  the  Senate  and 
House  met  in  joint  session  to  witness  the  count  of 
the  electoral  vote.  Spectators  packed  the  galleries 
and  overflowed  into  every  available  space.  The 
first  acts  were  of  a  purely  formal  nature.  Then 
the  envelopes  were  opened ;  the  votes  were  counted; 
Calhoun  was  declared  elected  to  the  vice  presi¬ 
dency;  and  it  was  announced  that  no  candidate 
for  the  presidency  had  received  a  majority.  Then 
the  senators  withdrew,  and  the  representatives 
addressed  themselves  to  the  task  which  the  Con¬ 
stitution  devolved  upon  them.  The  members  of 
each  delegation  took  their  seats  together;  the  vote 


THE  DEATH  OF  “  KING  CAUCUS  ” 


93 


of  each  State  was  placed  in  a  separate  box  on  a 
table;  and  Daniel  Webster  and  John  Randolph, 
acting  as  tellers,  opened  the  boxes  and  tabulated 
the  results.  No  one  expected  the  first  ballot  to  be 
decisive;  indeed  the  friends  of  Crawford,  who  were 
present  in  large  numbers,  were  pinning  their  hopes 
to  the  possibility  that  after  repeated  ballotings  the 
House  would  break  the  deadlock  between  Jackson 
and  Adams  by  turning  to  their  candidate.  A  hush 
fell  upon  the  expectant  assemblage  as  Webster  rose 
to  announce  the  result;  and  seasoned  politicians 
could  hardly  trust  their  ears  when  they  heard: 
Adams,  thirteen  votes;  Jackson,  seven;  Crawford, 
four.  An  eleventh-hour  change  of  mind  by  a  New 
York  representative  had  thrown  the  vote  of  that 
State  into  the  Adams  column  and  had  thereby 
assured  the  triumph  of  the  New  Englander. 

That  evening  Jackson  and  Adams  came  face  to 
face  at  a  presidential  levee,  Jackson  with  a  lady  on 
his  right  arm.  Each  man  hesitated  an  instant,  and 
spectators  wondered  what  was  going  to  happen. 
But  those  who  were  looking  for  a  sensation  were 
disappointed.  Reaching  out  his  long  arm,  the 
General  said  in  his  most  cordial  manner:  “How  do 
you  do,  Mr.  Adams?  I  give  you  my  left  hand,  for 
the  right,  as  you  see,  is  devoted  to  the  fair:  I  hope 


94  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


you  are  very  well,  sir.”  The  reply  came  in  clear 
but  icy  tones:  “Very  well,  sir;  I  hope  General  Jack- 
son  is  well.”  It  is  the  testimony  of  an  unprejudiced 
observer  that  of  the  two,  the  defeated  Tennesseean 
bore  himself  more  graciously  than  the  victorious 
New  Englander. 

Two  days  later  Adams,  following  a  conference 
with  Monroe,  invited  upon  his  head  the  fires  of 
heaven  by  announcing  that  he  had  decided  to 
appoint  Clay  Secretary  of  State,  “considering  it 
due  to  his  talents  and  services  to  the  western 
section  of  the  United  States,  whence  he  comes, 
and  to  the  confidence  in  me  manifested  by  their 
delegations.” 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 

Monroe’s  Administration  drew  to  a  close  in  a  mel¬ 
low  sunset  of  popular  approval.  But  no  prophetic 
genius  was  required  to  foresee  that  clouds  of  dis¬ 
content  and  controversy  would  hang  heavy  about 
the  head  of  his  successor.  Adams  certainly  did 
not  expect  it  to  be  otherwise.  “Prospects  are  flat¬ 
tering  for  the  immediate  issue,”  he  recorded  in  his 
diary  shortly  before  the  election,  “  but  the  fearful 
condition  of  them  is  that  success  would  open  to  a 
far  severer  trial  than  defeat.”  The  darkest  fore¬ 
bodings  were  more  than  realized.  No  one  of  our 
chief  executives,  except  possibly  Andrew  Johnson, 
was  ever  the  target  of  more  relentless  and  vindic¬ 
tive  attacks. 

Adams  was,  in  the  first  place,  a  minority  Presi¬ 
dent.  J ackson’s  popular  vote  was  probably  larger ; 
his  electoral  vote  was  certainly  so;  and  the  vote 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  was  at  the  last 

95 


96  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


moment  swung  to  Adams  only  by  certain  un¬ 
expected  and  more  or  less  accidental  developments. 
By  thus  receiving  his  oflBce  at  the  hands  of  a 
branch  of  Congress,  in  competition  with  a  candi¬ 
date  who  had  a  wider  popular  support,  the  New 
Englander  fell  heir  to  all  the  indignation  that 
had  been  aroused  against  congressional  intrigue, 
and  especially  against  the  selection  of  a  President 
by  Congressmen. 

There  was,  in  addition,  the  charge  of  a  “corrupt 
bargain.”  It  mattered  not  greatly  whether  the 
accusation  was  true  or  not.  The  people  widely 
accepted  it  as  true,  and  the  Administration  had 
to  bear  the  stigma.  “The  coalition  of  Blifil  and 
Black  George,  of  the  Puritan  and  the  black-leg,” 
John  Randolph  called  the  new  alliance;  and  while 
Clay  sought  to  vindicate  his  honor  in  a  duel  with 
the  author  of  the  phrase,  nothing  that  he  or  Adams 
could  do  or  say  was  able  to  overcome  the  effect 
upon  the  public  mind  created  by  the  cold  fact 
that  when  the  Clay  men  turned  their  support  to 
Adams  their  leader  was  forthwith  made  Secretary 
of  State. 

A  further  source  of  difficulty  in  the  situation 
was  the  temperament  of  Adams  himself.  There 
was  no  abler,  more  honest,  or  more  patriotic  man 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


97 


in  public  life;  yet  in  the  presidency  he  was,  espe¬ 
cially  at  this  juncture  of  affairs,  a  misfit.  He  was 
cold  and  reserved  when  every  consideration  called 
for  cordiality ;  he  was  petulant  when  tolerance  and 
good  humor  were  the  qualities  most  needful.  He 
could  neither  arouse  enthusiasm  nor  win  friends. 
He  was  large  visioned  and  adept  at  mapping  out 
broad  policies,  but  he  lacked  the  elements  of 
leadership  requisite  to  carry  his  plans  into  effect. 
He  scorned  the  everyday  arts  of  politics,  and  by 
the  very  loftiness  of  his  ideals  he  alienated  support. 
In  short,  as  one  writer  has  remarked,  he  was  “a 
weigher  of  scruples  and  values  in  a  time  of  transi¬ 
tion,  a  representative  of  old-school  politics  on  the 
threshold  of  triumphant  democracy.  The  people 
did  not  understand  him,  but  they  felt  instinctively 
that  he  was  not  one  of  themselves;  and,  therefore, 
they  cast  him  out.”  Nobody  had  ever  called  him 
“Old  Hickory”  or  any  other  name  indicative  of 
popular  endearment. 

Clay’s  appointment  as  Secretary  of  State  was 
thoroughly  typical  of  the  independent,  unyielding 
attitude  of  the  new  Administration.  Adams  had 
not  the  slightest  sympathy  with  the  idea  of  ro¬ 
tation  in  publie  position:  such  a  policy,  he 
said,  would  make  government  “a  perpetual  and 


98  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


unremitting  scramble  for  office.”  He  announced 
that  there  would  be  no  removals  except  such  as 
complaint  showed  to  be  for  the  good  of  the  service, 
and  only  twelve  removals  took  place  during  his  en¬ 
tire  term.  The  spoilsmen  argued  and  fumed.  The 
editor  of  an  administration  newspaper  warmly  told 
the  President  that  in  consequence  of  his  policy  he 
would  himself  be  removed  as  soon  as  the  term 
for  which  he  had  been  elected  had  expired.  But 
entreaties  and  threats  were  alike  of  no  avail.  Even 
Clay  could  not  get  the  removal  of  a  naval  officer 
guilty  of  unbecoming  conduct.  In  his  zeal  for 
nonpartizanship  Adams  fairly  leaned  backwards, 
with  the  result  that  incompetents  were  shielded 
and  the  offices  were  left  in  the  hands  of  men 
who,  in  a  very  large  number  of  cases,  were  openly 
hostile  to  the  President  and  to  his  policies. 

“Less  possessed  of  your  confidence  in  advance 
than  any  of  my  predecessors,  ”  wrote  Adams  in  his 
first  message  to  Congress,  “I  am  deeply  conscious 
of  the  prospect  that  I  shall  stand  more  and  oftener 
in  need  of  your  indulgence.”  In  the  principles 
and  measures  which  he  urged  upon  the  legislative 
branch,  none  the  less,  he  showed  small  regard  fof 
moderation  or  expediency.  He  defined  the  object 
of  government  to  be  the  improvement  of  the 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


99 


condition  of  the  people,  and  he  refused  to  recog¬ 
nize  in  the  federal  Constitution  restrictions  which 
would  prevent  the  national  authorities  from  ful¬ 
filling  this  function  in  the  highest  degree.  He 
urged  not  only  the  building  of  roads  and  canals 
but  the  establishment  of  a  national  university,  the 
support  of  observatories,  “the  light-houses  of  the 
skies,”  and  the  exploration  of  the  interior  and  of 
the  far  northwestern  parts  of  the  country.  He 
advocated  heavy  protective  duties  on  goods  im¬ 
ported  from  abroad,  and  asked  Congress  to  pass 
laws  not  alone  for  the  betterment  of  agriculture, 
manufactures,  and  trade  but  for  the  “encourage¬ 
ment  of  the  mechanic  and  of  the  elegant  arts,  the 
advancement  of  literature,  and  the  progress  of  the 
sciences,  ornamental  and  profound.”  He  thought 
that  the  public  lands  should  be  sold  at  the  high¬ 
est  prices  they  would  bring  and  that  the  money 
should  be  used  by  the  Government  to  promote  the 
general  welfare.  He  had  no  doubt  of  either  the 
power  or  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  maintain 
a  national  bank. 

Since  the  War  of  1812  the  Republicans,  with 
whom  Adams  had  been  numbered,  had  inclined 
strongly  toward  a  liberal  construction  of  the 
Constitution,  but  none  had  gone  to  the  limits 


100  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


marked  out  in  this  program.  Besides,  a  strong 
reaction  was  now  setting  in.  The  President’s  rec¬ 
ommendations  were  received  in  some  quarters  with 
astonishment,  in  some  rather  with  amusement.  No¬ 
where  were  they  regarded,  in  their  entirety,  with 
favor.  Even  Clay  —  spokesman  of  nationalism 
though  he  was  —  could  not  follow  his  chief  in  his 
untrammeled  flights.  Men  still  widely  believed  that 
the  National  Government  ought  to  spend  money 
freely  on  highways,  canals,  and  other  improvements. 
But  by  his  bold  avowals  Adams  characteristically 
threw  away  support  for  both  himself  and  his  cause; 
and  the  era  of  federal  initiative  and  management 
was  thus  hastened  toward  its  close. 

No  one  who  knew  Jackson  and  his  political 
managers  expected  them  to  accept  the  anomalous 
electoral  results  of  1825  as  expressing  the  real  will 
of  the  nation,  and  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  not 
only  that  the  General  would  again  be  a  candidate, 
but  that  the  campaign  of  1828  would  at  once  be¬ 
gin.  The  defeated  Senator  remained  in  Washington 
long  enough  to  present  himself  at  the  White  House 
on  Inauguration  Day  and  felicitate  his  successful 
rival.  Then  he  set  out  on  the  long  journey  home¬ 
ward.  Every  town  through  Pennsylvania  and 
along  the  Ohio  turned  out  en  masse  to  greet  him. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


101 


and  at  Nashville  he  was  given  a  prodigious  recep¬ 
tion.  To  friends  and  traveling  companions  he 
talked  constantly  about  the  election,  leaving  no 
doubt  of  his  conviction  that  he  had  been  defeated 
by  intrigue.  To  a  sympathetic  group  of  passengers 
traveling  down  the  Ohio  with  him  on  board  the 
General  Neville  he  declared  emphatically  that,  if  he 
had  been  willing  to  make  the  same  promises  and 
offers  to  Clay  that  Adams  had  made,  he  would 
that  minute  be  in  the  presidential  chair.  If  he 
should  yet  attain  that  dignity,  he  added  signifi¬ 
cantly,  he  would  do  it  “with  clean  hands.”  It  is 
reported  that  as  he  spoke  there  was  in  his  eye  the 
fire  of  determination,  such  as  his  soldiers  had  seen 
there  as  he  strode  up  and  down  the  breastworks  at 
New  Orleans. 

To  this  point  Jackson  had  sought  the  presidency 
rather  at  the  instigation  of  his  friends  than  because 
of  personal  desire  for  the  office.  Now  all  was 
changed.  The  people  had  expressed  their  prefer¬ 
ence  for  him,  and  their  will  had  been  thwarted. 
Henceforth  he  was  moved  by  an  inflexible  purpose 
to  vindicate  both  his  own  right  to  the  position  and 
the  right  of  his  fellow  citizens  to  choose  their  chief 
executive  without  hindrance.  In  this  determina¬ 
tion  he  was  warmly  backed  up  by  his  neighbors 


102  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


and  advisers,  and  the  machinery  for  a  long,  sys¬ 
tematic,  and  resistless  campaign  was  speedily  put 
into  running  order.  One  group  of  managers  took 
charge  in  Washington.  Another  set  to  work  in 
New  York.  A  third  undertook  to  keep  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  in  line.  A  fourth  began  to  consolidate  sup¬ 
port  in  the  South.  At  the  capital  the  United  States 
Telegraph,  edited  by  Duff  Green  of  Missouri,  was 
established  as  a  Jackson  organ,  and  throughout 
the  country  friendly  journals  were  set  the  task  of 
keeping  up  an  incessant  fire  upon  the  Adminis¬ 
tration  and  of  holding  the  Jackson  men  together. 
Local  committees  were  organized;  pamphlets  and 
handbills  were  put  into  circulation ;  receptions  and 
public  dinners  were  exploited,  whenever  possible, 
in  the  interest  of  the  cause.  First,  last,  and  al¬ 
ways,  Jackson’s  candidacy  was  put  forward  as  the 
hope  and  opportunity  of  the  plain  people  as  against 
the  politicians. 

In  October  the  Tennessee  Legislature  again 
placed  its  favorite  formally  in  nomination,  and  a 
few  days  later  the  candidate  resigned  his  seat  in 
the  Senate  in  order  to  be  more  advantageously 
situated  for  carrying  on  his  campaign.  For  more 
than  a  year  he  remained  quietly  at  the  Hermitage, 
dividing  his  attention  between  his  blooded  horses 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


103 


and  dogs  and  his  political  interests.  Lewis  stayed 
at  his  side,  partly  to  restrain  him  from  outbreaks 
of  temper  or  other  acts  that  might  injure  his  in¬ 
terests,  partly  to  serve  as  an  intermediary  between 
him  and  the  Washington  manipulators. 

Before  Adams  had  been  in  the  White  House  six 
months  the  country  was  divided  substantially  into 
Jackson  men  and  anti-Jackson  or  administration 
men.  The  elements  from  which  Jackson  drew  sup¬ 
port  were  many  and  discordant.  The  backbone 
of  his  strength  was  the  self-assertive,  ambitious 
western  Democracy,  which  recognized  in  him  its 
truest  and  most  eminent  representative.  The  al¬ 
liance  with  the  Calhoun  forces  was  kept  up,  al¬ 
though  it  was  already  jeopardized  by  the  feeling 
of  the  South  Carolinian’s  friends  that  they,  and 
not  Jackson’s  friends,  should  lead  in  the  coming 
campaign.  After  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  the 
supporters  of  Crawford  came  over  also.  Van  Buren 
coquetted  with  the  Adams  forces  for  a  year,  and 
the  old-line  Republicans,  strong  in  the  Jefferso¬ 
nian  faith,  brought  themselves  to  the  support  of 
the  Tennesseean  with  difficulty;  but  eventually 
both  northern  and  southern  wings  of  the  Craw¬ 
ford  contingent  alined  themselves  against  the  Ad¬ 
ministration.  The  decision  of  Van  Buren  brought 


104  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


into  the  Jackson  ranks  a  past  master  in  party 
management,  “the  cleverest  politician  in  a  State 
in  which  the  sort  of  politics  that  is  concerned  with 
the  securing  .of  elections  rather  than  fighting  for 
principles  had  grown  into  a  science  and  an  art.” 
By  1826  the  Jackson  forces  were  welded  into  a 
substantial  party,  although  for  a  long  time  their 
principles  involved  little  more  than  hostility  to 
Adams  and  enthusiasm  for  Jackson,  and  thev 
bore  no  other  designation  than  Jackson  men. 

The  elements  that  were  left  to  support  the  Ad¬ 
ministration  were  the  followers  of  Adams  and 
Clay.  These  eventually  drew  together  under  the 
name  of  National  Republicans.  Their  strength, 
however,  was  limited,  for  Adams  could  make  no 
appeal  to  the  masses,  even  in  New  England;  while 
Clay,  by  contributing  to  Jackson’s  defeat,  had 
forfeited  much  of  the  popularity  that  would  other¬ 
wise  have  been  his. 

If  the  story  of  Adams’s  Administration  could 
be  told  in  detail,  it  would  be  one  long  record  of 
rancorous  warfare  between  the  President  and  the 
Jacksonian  opposition  in  Congress.  Adams,  on 
the  one  hand,  held  inflexibly  to  his  course,  advocat¬ 
ing  policies  and  recommending  measures  which  he 
knew  had  not  the  remotest  chance  of  adoption; 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


105 


and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  opposition — which  in 
the  last  two  years  of  the  Administration  controlled 
the  Senate  as  well  as  the  House  of  Representatives 
—  balked  at  no  act  that  would  humiliate  the 
President  and  make  capital  for  its  western  idol. 
At  the  outset  the  J acksonians  tried  to  hold  up  the 
confirmation  of  Clay.  It  fell  furiously,  and  qtiite 
without  discrimination,  upon  the  President’s  great 
scheme  of  national  improvements,  professing  to 
see  in  it  evidence  of  an  insatiable  desire  for 
“concentration.”  In  the  discussion  of  a  proposed 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  providing  for  di¬ 
rect  election  of  the  President  by  the  people  it  was 
constantly  assumed  and  frequently  stated  that 
Adams  had  no  moral  right  to  the  position  which 
he  occupied.  The  President’s  decision  to  send 
delegates  to  the  Panama  Congress  of  1826  raised 
a  storm  of  acrimonious  debate  and  brought  the 
Administration’s  enemies  into  closer  unison.  To 
cap  the  climax,  Adams  was  solemnly  charged  with 
abuse  of  the  federal  patronage,  and  in  the  Senate 
six  bills  for  the  remedy  of  the  President’s  pernicious 
practices  were  brought  in  by  Benton  in  a  single 
batch !  Adams  was  able  and  honest,  but  he  got  no 
credit  from  his  opponents  for  these  qualities.  He,  in 
turn,  displayed  little  magnanimity ;  and  in  refusing 


106  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


to  shape  his  policies  and  methods  to  meet  the  con¬ 
ditions  under  which  he  had  to  work,  he  fell  short 
of  the  highest  statesmanship. 

As  election  year  approached,  it  became  clear 
that  the  people  would  at  last  have  an  opportunity 
to  make  a  direct  choice  between  Adams  and  Jack- 
son.  Each  candidate  was  formally  nominated  by 
sundry  legislatures  and  other  bodies;  no  one  so 
much  as  suggested  nomination  by  congressional 
caucus.  In  the  early  months  of  1828  the  campaign 
rapidly  rose  to  an  extraordinary  level  of  vigor  and 
public  interest.  Each  party  group  became  bitter 
and  personal  in  its  attacks  upon  the  other;  in  our 
entire  political  history  there  have  been  not  more 
than  two  or  three  campaigns  so  smirched  with 
vituperation  and  abuse.  The  Jackson  papers 
and  stump  speakers  laid  great  stress  on  Adams’s 
aristocratic  temperament,  denounced  his  policies 
as  President,  and  exploited  the  “corrupt  bargain” 
charge  with  all  possible  ingenuity. 

On  the  other  hahd,  the  Adams-Clay  forces 
dragged  forth  in  long  array  Jackson’s  quarrels, 
duels,  and  rough-and-tumble  encounters  to  prove 
that  he  was  not  fit  to  be  President;  they  distrib¬ 
uted  handbills  decorated  with  coffins  bearing  the 
names  of  the  candidate’s  victims;  they  cited  scores 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


107 


of  actions,  from  the  execution  of  mutinous  militia¬ 
men  in  the  Creek  War  to  the  quarrel  with  Callava, 
to  show  his  arbitrary  disposition;  and  they  strove 
in  a  most  malicious  manner  to  undermine  his  popu¬ 
larity  by  breaking  down  his  personal  reputation, 
and  even  that  of  his  wife  and  of  his  mother.  It 
has  been  said  that  “the  reader  of  old  newspaper 
files  and  pamphlet  collections  of  the  Adamsite 
persuasion,  in  the  absence  of  other  knowledge, 
would  gather  that  Jackson  was  a  usurper,  an 
adulterer,  a  gambler,  a  cock-fighter,  a  brawler,  a 
drunkard,  and  withal  a  murderer  of  the  most  cruel 
and  blood-thirsty  description.”  Issues  —  tariff,  in¬ 
ternal  improvements,  foreign  policy,  slavery  —  re¬ 
ceded  into  the  background;  the  campaign  became 
for  all  practical  purposes  a  personal  contest  between 
the  Tennessee  soldier  and  the  two  statesmen  whom 
he  accused  of  bargain  and  corruption.  “Hurrah  for 
Jackson!”  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  creed 
of  the  masses  bent  on  the  Tennesseean’s  election. 

Jackson  never  wearied  of  saying  that  he  was 
“no  politician.”  He  was,  none  the  less,  one  of  the 
most  forceful  and  successful  politicians  that  the 
country  has  known.  He  was  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  personify  a  cause  which  was  grounded 
deeply  in  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  the  people. 


108  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

and  also  in  being  able  to  command  the  services  of  a 
large  group  of  tireless  and  skillful  national  and  local 
managers.  He  was  willing  to  leave  to  these  man¬ 
agers  the  infinite  details  of  his  campaign.  But  he 
kept  in  close  touch  with  them  and  their  subordi¬ 
nates,  and  upon  occasion  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
take  personal  command.  In  politics,  as  in  war, 
he  was  imperious;  persons  not  willing  to  support 
him  with  all  their  might,  and  without  question 
or  quibble,  he  preferred  to  see  on  the  other  side. 
Throughout  the  campaign  his  opponents  hoped, 
and  his  friends  feared,  that  he  would  commit  some 
deed  of  anger  that  would  ruin  his  chances  of  elec¬ 
tion.  The  temptation  was  strong,  especially  when 
the  circumstances  of  his  marriage  were  dragged 
into  the  controversy.  But  while  he  chafed  in¬ 
wardly,  and  sometimes  expressed  himself  with 
more  force  than  elegance  in  the  presence  of  his 
friends,  he  maintained  an  outward  calm  and  dig¬ 
nity.  His  bitterest  feehng  was  reserved  for  Clay, 
who  was  known  to  be  the  chief  inspirer  of  the  Na¬ 
tional  Republicans’  mud-slinging  campaign.  But 
he  felt  that  Adams  had  it  in  his  power  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  slanders  that  were  set  in  circulation, 
had  he  cared  to  do  so. 

As  the  campaign  drew  to  a  close,  circumstances 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


109 


pointed  with  increasing  sureness  to  the  triumph 
of  the  Jackson  forces.  Adams,  foreseeing  the  end, 
found  solace  in  harsh  and  sometimes  picturesque 
entries  in  his  diary.  A  group  of  opposition  Con¬ 
gressmen  he  pronounced  “  skunks  of  party  slander.” 
Calhoun  he  described  as  “stimulated  to  frenzy 
by  success,  flattery,  and  premature  advancement; 
governed  by  no  steady  principle,  but  sagacious 
to  seize  upon  every  prevailing  popular  breeze  to 
swell  his  own  sails.”  Clay,  likewise,  became  petu¬ 
lant  and  gloomy.  In  the  last  two  months  of  the 
canvass  Jackson  ordered  a  general  onslaught  upon 
Kentucky,  and  when  finally  it  was  affirmed  that 
the  State  had  been  “carried  out  from  under”  its 
accustomed  master.  Clay  knew  only  too  well  that 
the  boast  was  true.  To  Adams’s  assurances  that 
after  four  years  of  Jackson  the  country  would 
gladly  turn  to  the  Kentuckian,  the  latter  could 
only  reply  that  there  would,  indeed,  be  a  reaction, 
but  that  before  another  President  would  be  taken 
from  the  West  he  would  be  too  old;  and  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  Adams  persuaded  him  not  to 
retire  immediately  from  the  Cabinet. 

The  results  of  the  contest  fully  bore  out  the 
apprehensions  of  the  Administration.  Jackson 
received  nearly  140,000  more  popular  votes  than 


110  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

Adams  and  carried  every  State  south  of  the 
Potomac  and  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  He  car¬ 
ried  Pennsylvania  also  by  a  vote  of  two  to  one 
and  divided  about  equally  with  his  opponent  the 
votes  of  New  York  and  Maryland.  Only  New 
England  held  fast  for  Adams.  As  one  writer  has 
facetiously  remarked,  “It  took  a  New  England 
conscience  to  hold  a  follower  in  line  for  the  New 
England  candidate.”  The  total  electoral  vote  was 
178  for  Jackson  and  83  for  Adams.  Calhoun 
was  easily  reelected  to  the  vice  presidency.  Both 
branches  of  Congress  remained  under  the  control 
of  Jackson’s  partizans. 

Months  before  the  election,  congratulatory  mes¬ 
sages  began  to  pour  into  the  Hermitage.  Some 
came  from  old  friends  and  disinterested  well- 
wishers,  many  from  prospective  seekers  of  office 
or  of  other  favors.  Influential  people  in  the  East, 
and  especially  at  the  capital,  hastened  to  express 
their  desire  to  be  of  service  to  the  Jacksons  in  the 
new  life  to  which  they  were  about  to  be  called. 
In  the  list  one  notes  with  interest  the  names 
of  General  Thomas  Cadwalader  of  Philadelphia, 
salaried  lobbyist  for  the  United  States  Bank, 
and  Senator  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  the  future  South 
Carolina  nullifier. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  TRIUMPH 


111 


Returns  suflSciently  complete  to  leave  no  doubt 
of  Jackson’s  election  reached  the  Hermitage  on  the 
9th  of  December.  That  afternoon,  Lewis,  Carroll, 
and  a  few  other  members  of  the  “general  head¬ 
quarters  staff”  gathered  at  the  Jackson  home  to 
review  the  situation  and  look  over  the  bulky  cor¬ 
respondence  that  had  come  in.  “General  Jack- 
son,  ”  reports  Lewis,  “  showed  no  elation.  In  fact, 
he  had  for  some  time  considered  his  election  certain, 
the  only  question  in  his  mind  being  the  extent  of 
the  majority.  When  he  finished  looking  over  the 
summary  by  States,  his  only  remark  was  that 
Isaac  Hill,  considering  the  odds  against  him,  had 
done  wonders  in  New  Hampshire!” 

When,  two  weeks  later,  the  final  returns  were 
received,  leading  Tennesseeans  decided  to  give  a 
reception,  banquet,  and  ball  which  would  outshine 
any  social  occasion  in  the  annals  of  the  Southwest. 
Just  as  arrangements  were  completed,  however, 
Mrs.  Jackson,  who  had  long  been  in  failing  health, 
suffered  an  attack  of  heart  trouble;  and  at  the  very 
hour  when  the  General  was  to  have  been  received, 
amid  all  the  trappings  of  civil  and  military  splen¬ 
dor,  with  the  huzzas  of  his  neighbors,  friends,  and 
admirers,  he  was  sitting  tearless,  speechless,  and 
almost  expressionless  by  the  corpse  of  his  life 


112  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


companion.  Long  after  the  beloved  one  had  been 
laid  to  rest  in  the  Hermitage  garden  amid  the 
rosebushes  she  had  planted,  the  President-elect 
continued  as  one  benumbed.  He  never  gave  up 
the  idea  that  his  wife  had  been  killed  by  worry 
over  the  attacks  made  upon  him  and  upon  her  by 
the  Adams  newspapers  —  that,  as  he  expressed 
it,  she  was  “murdered  by  slanders  that  pierced 
her  heart.”  Only  under  continued  prodding  from 
Lewis  and  other  friends  did  he  recall  himself  to  his 
great  task  and  set  about  preparing  for  the  arduous 
winter  journey  to  Washington,  composing  his  in¬ 
augural  address,  selecting  his  Cabinet,  and  laying 
plans  for  the  reorganization  of  the  federal  Civil 
Service  on  lines  already  definitely  in  his  mind. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  “reign”  begins 

Jackson’s  election  to  the  presidency  in  1828 
was  correctly  described  by  Senator  Benton  as  “a 
triumph  of  democratic  principle,  and  an  assertion 
of  the  people’s  right  to  govern  themselves.”  Jef¬ 
ferson  in  his  day  was  a  candidate  of  the  masses, 
and  his  triumph  over  John  Adams  in  1800  was 
received  with  great  public  acclaim.  Yet  the  Vir¬ 
ginian  was  at  best  an  aristocratic  sort  of  demo¬ 
crat;  he  was  never  in  the  fullest  sense  a  man  of  the 
people.  Neither  Madison  nor  Monroe  inspired 
enthusiasm,  and  for  John  Quincy  Adams  even  New 
Englanders  voted,  as  Ezekiel  Webster  confessed, 
from  a  cold  sense  of  duty.  Jackson  was,  as  no 
President  before  him,  the  choice  of  the  masses. 
His  popular  vote  in  1824  revealed  not  only  his 
personal  popularity  but  the  growing  power  of  the 
democratic  elements  in  the  nation,  and  his  defeat 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  only  strengthened 

1 13 


8 


114  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


his  own  and  the  people’s  determination  to  be  finally 
victorious.  The  untrained,  self-willed,  passionate 
frontier  soldier  came  to  power  in  1828  as  the 
standard  bearer  of  a  mighty  democratic  uprising 
which  was  destined  before  it  ran  its  course  to  break 
down  oligarchical  party  organizations,  to  liberalize 
state  and  local  governments,  and  to  turn  the  stream 
of  national  politics  into  wholly  new  channels. 
It  was  futile  for  men  of  the  old  school  to  protest 
and  to  prophesy  misfortune  for  the  country  under 
its  new  rulers.  The  people  had  spoken,  and  this 
time  the  people’s  will  was  not  to  be  denied. 

Still  haggard  from  his  recent  personal  loss,  the 
President-elect  set  out  for  Washington,  at  the 
middle  of  January,  1829.  With  him  went  his 
nephew,  Andrew  Jackson  Donelson,  who  was  to 
be  his  private  secretary;  Mrs.  Donelson,  who  was 
to  preside  over  the  executive  mansion;  an  accom¬ 
plished  niece  of  Mrs.  Jackson,  who  was  to  be  of 
social  assistance;  an  artist  by  the  name  of  Earl, 
who  resided  at  the  W^hite  House  throughout  Jack¬ 
son’s  two  Administrations,  engaged  continually  in 
painting  portraits  of  the  General;  and,  finally, 
the  faithful  Major  Lewis,  whose  intention  was 
merely  to  attend  the  inauguration  and  then  return 
to  his  plantation.  The  puffing  little  steamboat 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


115 


on  which  the  party  traveled  down  the  Cumber¬ 
land  and  up  the  Ohio  was  saluted  and  cheered 
a  hundred  times  a  day;  at  Louisville,  Cincinnati, 
and  Pittsburgh  there  were  great  outpourings  of 
demonstrative  citizens.  Duff  Green,  one  of  the 
party  managers,  proposed  that  a  great  cavalcade 
should  meet  the  victor  at  Pittsburgh  and  escort  him 
by  relays  to  the  capital.  On  Van  Buren’s  advice 
the  plan  was  abandoned.  But  as  the  party  passed 
along  the  National  Road  toward  its  destination  it 
was  accorded  an  ovation  which  left  nothing  to  be 
desired  as  an  evidence  of  the  public  favor. 

Arrived  in  Washington,  on  the  11th  of  Febru¬ 
ary  —  the  day  on  which  the  electoral  votes  were 
counted  in  the  Senate  —  Jackson  and  his  friends 
found  temporary  lodgings  at  the  Indian  Queen  Tav¬ 
ern,  commonly  known  as  “the  Wigwam.”  Dur¬ 
ing  the  next  three  weeks  the  old  inn  was  the 
scene  of  unwonted  activity.  Office  seekers  be¬ 
sieged  it  morning,'  noon,  and  night;  politicians 
came  to  ask  favors  or  give  advice;  exponents  of 
every  sort  of  cause  watched  for  opportunities  to 
obtain  promises  of  presidential  support;  scores  of 
the  curious  came  with  no  other  purpose  than  to  see 
what  a  backwoods  President  looked  like.  “The 
city  is  full  of  speculation  and  speculators,”  wrote 


116  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Daniel  Webster  to  his  sister-in-law  a  few  days 
after  Jackson’s  arrival;  “a  great  multitude,  too 
many  to  be  fed  without  a  miracle,  are  already  in 
the  city,  hungry  for  office.  Especially,  I  learn 
that  the  typographical  corps  is  assembled  in  great 
force.  From  New  Hampshire,  our  friend  Hill; 
from  Boston,  Mr.  Greene  .  .  .  and  from  every¬ 
where  else  somebody  else.  So  many  friends  ready 
to  advise,  and  whose  advice  is  so  disinterested, 
make  somewhat  of  a  numerous  council  about  the 
President-elect;  and,  if  report  be  true,  it  is  a 
council  which  only  makes  that  darker  which  was 
dark  enough  before.” 

To  all,  Jackson  was  accessible.  But  he  was 
not  communicative,  and  up  to  Inauguration  Day 
people  were  left  to  speculate  not  only  upon  the 
truth  of  the  rumor  that  there  was  to  be  a  “full 
sweep”  in  the  offices  but  upon  the  new  Adminis¬ 
tration’s  attitude  on  public  questions  in  general. 
Even  Isaac  Hill,  a  warm  friend  and  supporter,  was 
obliged  to  write  to  an  acquaintance  four  days  be¬ 
fore  the  inauguration  that  Jackson  had  little  to 
say  about  the  future,  “except  in  a  general  way.” 
The  men  with  whom  the  Executive-elect  was  daily 
closeted  were  Major  Lewis  and  Senators  Eaton 
and  White.  Van  Buren  would  have  been  of  the 


THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS 


117 


number,  had  not  his  recently  assumed  duties  as 
Governor  kept  him  at  Albany.  He  was  ably  rep¬ 
resented,  however,  by  James  A.  Hamilton,  a  son 
of  Alexander  Hamilton,  to  whose  correspondence 
we  owe  most  of  what  we  know  about  the  laying 
of  the  plans  for  the  new  Administration. 

The  most  pressing  question  was  the  personnel 
of  the  Cabinet.  Upon  only  one  appointment  was 
Jackson  fully  determined  when  he  reached  Wash¬ 
ington:  Van  Buren  was  to  be  Secretary  of  State. 
The  “little  magician”  had  been  influential  in 
turning  New  York  from  Crawford  to  Jackson;  he 
had  resigned  his  seat  in  the  Senate  and  run  for  the 
governorship  with  a  view  to  uniting  the  party  for 
Jackson’s  benefit;  he  was  the  cleverest  politician 
and,  next  to  Calhoun,  the  ablest  man,  in  the 
Democratic  ranks.  When  offered  the  chief  place 
in  the  Cabinet  he  promptly  accepted.  Edward 
Livingston  was  given  his  choice  of  the  remaining 
positions,  but  preferred  to  accept  an  election  to 
the  Senate.  With  due  regard  for  personal  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  and  sectional  interests,  the  list  was 
then  completed.  A  Pennsylvania  Congressman, 
Samuel  D.  Ingham,  became  Secretary  of  the  Treas¬ 
ury;  Senator  John  H.  Eaton  was  made  Secre¬ 
tary  of  War;  a  Calhoun  supporter  from  North 


118  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Carolina,  John  Branch,  was  given  the  Navy  port¬ 
folio;  Senator  John  M.  Berrien  of  Georgia  became 
Attorney-General;  and  William  T.  Barry  of  Ken¬ 
tucky  was  appointed  Postmaster-General,  after  the 
incumbent,  John  McLean,  refused  to  accept  the 
policy  of  a  clean  slate  in  the  department.  The 
appointments  were  kept  secret  until  one  week  be¬ 
fore  the  inauguration,  when  they  were  announced 
in  the  party  organ  at  the  capital.  Duff  Green’s 
United  States  Telegraph. 

Everywhere  the  list  caused  consternation.  Van 
Buren’s  was  the  only  name  of  distinction  in  it; 
and  only  one  of  the  appointees  had  had  experience 
in  the  administration  of  national  affairs.  Hamil¬ 
ton  pronounced  the  group  “the  most  unintellec¬ 
tual  Cabinet  we  ever  had.”  Van  Buren  doubted 
whether  he  ought  to  have  accepted  a  seat  in  such 
company.  A  crowning  expression  of  dissatisfaction 
came  from  the  Tennessee  delegation  in  Congress, 
which  formally  protested  against  the  appointment 
of  Eaton.  But  the  President-elect  was  not  to 
be  swayed.  His  ideas  of  administrative  eflSeiency 
were  not  highly  developed,  and  he  believed  that 
his  Cabinet  would  prove  equal  to  all  demands 
made  upon  it.  Not  the  least  of  its  virtues  in  his 
eyes  was  the  fact  that,  although  nearly  evenly 


THE  CITY  OF  WASHINGTON,  FROM  BEYOND  THE  NAVY 

YARD 

Aquatint  engraving  by  W.  J.  Bennett,  after  a  painting  by  G.  Cooke. 
Published  by  Lewis  G.  Clover,  New  York,  1834.  In  the  collection 
of  1.  N.  Phelps  Stokes,  Esq.,  New  York. 


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THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS  119 

divided  between  his  own  followers  and  the  friends 
of  Calhoun,  it  contained  not  one  person  who  was 
not  an  uncompromising  anti-Clay  man. 

Meanwhile  a  motley  army  of  office  seekers,  per¬ 
sonal  friends,  and  sightseers  —  to  the  number  of 
ten  or  fifteen  thousand  —  poured  into  Washing* 
ton  to  see  the  old  regime  of  Virginia,  New  York, 
and  Massachusetts  go  out  and  the  new  regime  of 
the  people  come  in.  “A  monstrous  crowd  of  peo¬ 
ple,”  wrote  Webster  on  Inauguration  Day,  “is 
in  the  city.  I  never  saw  anything  like  it  before. 
Persons  have  come  five  hundred  miles  to  see 
General  Jackson,  and  they  really  seem  to  think 
that  the  country  is  rescued  from  some  dreadful 
danger.”  Another  observer,  who  was  also  not  a 
Jacksonian,  wrote*: 

No  one  who  was  in  Washington  at  the  time  of  General 
Jackson’s  inauguration  is  likely  to  forget  that  period  to 
the  day  of  his  death.  To  us,  who  had  witnessed  the 
quiet  and  orderly  period  of  the  Adams  Administration, 
it  seemed  as  if  half  the  nation  had  rushed  at  once  into 
the  capital.  It  was  like  the  inundation  of  the  northern 
barbarians  into  Rome,  save  that  the  tumultuous  tide 
came  in  from  a  different  point  of  the  compass.  The 
West  and  the  South  seemed  to  have  precipitated  them¬ 
selves  upon  the  North  and  overwhelmed  it.  .  .  . 

*Parton,  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,  vol.  in,  p.  168. 


120  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Strange  faces  filled  every  public  place,  and  every  face 
seemed  to  bear  defiance  on  its  brow.  It  appeared  to  me 
that  every  Jackson  editor  in  the  country  was  on  the 
spot.  They  swarmed,  especially  in  the  lobbies  of  the 
House,  an  expectant  host,  a  sort  of  Praetorian  band, 
which,  having  borne  in  upon  their  shields  their  idolized 
leader,  claimed  the  reward  of  the  hard-fought  contest. 

The  4th  of  March  dawned  clear  and  balmy. 
“By  ten  o’clock,”  says  an  eye-witness,  “the  Ave¬ 
nue  was  crowded  with  carriages  of  every  descrip¬ 
tion,  from  the  splendid  baronet  and  coach,  down 
to  wagons  and  carts,  filled  with  women  and  chil¬ 
dren,  some  in  finery  and  some  in  rags,  for  it 
was  the  People’s  president.”  The  great  square 
which  now  separates  the  Capitol  and  the  Library 
of  Congress  was  in  Jackson’s  day  shut  in  by  a 
picket  fence.  This  enclosure  was  filled  with 
people  —  “a  vast  agitated  sea”  —  while  in  all 
directions  the  slopes  of  Capitol  Hill  were  thickly 
occupied.  At  noon  watchers  on  the  west  portico, 
looking  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  saw  a  group 
of  gentlemen  issue  from  the  Indian  Queen  and 
thread  its  way  slowly  up  the  hill.  All  wore  their 
hats  except  one  tall,  dignified,  white-haired  figure 
in  the  middle,  who  was  quickly  recognized  as 
Jackson.  Passing  through  the  building,  the  party ^ 
reinforced  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall  and  certain 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


121 


other  dignitaries,  emerged  upon  the  east  portico, 
amid  the  deafening  cheers  of  the  spectators.  The 
President-elect  bowed  gravely,  and,  stepping  for¬ 
ward  to  a  small  cloth-covered  table,  read  in  a  low 
voice  the  inaugural  address;  the  aged  Chief  Justice, 
“  whose  life  was  a  protest  against  the  political  views 
of  the  Jackson  party,”  administered  the  oath  of 
oflBce;  and  the  ceremony  was  brought  to  a  close  in 
the  customary  manner  by  the  new  Executive  kiss¬ 
ing  the  Bible.  Francis  Scott  Key,  watching  the 
scene  from  one  of  the  gates,  was  moved  to  exclaim : 
“It  is  beautiful,  it  is  sublime.” 

Thus  far  the  people  had  been  sufficiently  im¬ 
pressed  by  the  dignity  of  the  occasion  to  keep 
their  places  and  preserve  a  reasonable  silence. 
But  when  the  executive  party  started  to  withdraw, 
men,  women,  and  children  rushed  past  the  police 
and  scrambled  up  the  steps  in  a  wild  effort  to 
reach  their  adored  leader  and  grasp  his  hand. 
Disheveled  and  panting,  the  President  finally 
reached  a  gate  at  which  his  horse  was  in  waiting; 
and,  mounting  with  difficulty,  he  set  off  for  the 
White  House,  followed  by  a  promiscuous  multi¬ 
tude,  “countrymen,  farmers,  gentlemen,  mounted 
and  unmounted,  boys,  women,  and  children,  black 
and  white.” 


122  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


The  late  President  had  no  part  in  the  day’s 
proceedings.  On  arriving  in  Washington,  Jack- 
son  had  refused  to  make  the  usual  call  of  the 
incoming  upon  the  outgoing  Executive,  mainly 
because  he  held  Adams  responsible  for  the  news¬ 
paper  virulence  which  had  caused  Mrs.  Jackson 
such  distress  and  had  possibly  shortened  her  life. 
Deserted  by  all  save  his  most  intimate  friends, 
the  New  Englander  faced  the  last  hours  of  his  Ad¬ 
ministration  in  bitterness.  His  diary  bears  ample 
evidence  of  his  ill-humor  and  chagrin.  On  the 
3d  of  March  he  took  up  his  residence  on  Merid¬ 
ian  Hill,  near  the  western  limits  of  the  city; 
and  thence  he  did  not  venture  until  the  festi¬ 
vities  of  the  ensuing  day  were  ended.  No  amount 
of  effort  on  the  part  of  mediators  ever  availed 
to  bring  about  a  reconciliation  between  him  and 
his  successor. 

According  to  custom,  the  inaugural  program 
came  to  an  end  with  a  reception  at  the  W'hite 
House;  and  arrangements  were  made  to  entertain 
a  large  number  of  guests.  Police  control,  how¬ 
ever,  proved  wholly  inadequate,  and  when  the 
throng  that  followed  the  President  up  the  Avenue 
reached  the  executive  grounds  it  engulfed  the  man¬ 
sion  and  poured  in  by  windows  as  well  as  doors. 


THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS 


123 


until  the  reception  rooms  were  packed  to  suffo¬ 
cation.  Other  guests,  bidden  and  unbidden  — 
“statesmen  and  stable-boys,  fine  ladies  and  washer¬ 
women,  white  people  and  blacks”  —  continued  for 
hours  to  besiege  the  doors.  “  I  never  saw  such  a 
mixture,  ”  records  Judge  Story;  “the  reign  of  King 
Mob  seemed  triumphant.  I  was  glad  to  escape 
from  the  scene  as  soon  as  possible.”  The  Presi¬ 
dent,  too,  after  being  jostled  for  an  hour,  very  will¬ 
ingly  made  his  way  by  a  side  entrance  to  the  street 
and  thence  to  his  hotel. 

A  profusion  of  refreshments,  including  barrels  of 
orange  punch,  had  been  provided;  and  an  attempt 
to  serve  the  guests  led  to  a  veritable  saturnalia. 
Waiters  emerging  from  doors  with  loaded  trays 
were  borne  to  the  floor  by  the  crush;  china  and 
glassware  were  smashed;  gallons  of  punch  were 
spilled  on  the  carpets;  in  their  eagerness  to  be 
served  men  in  muddy  boots  leaped  upon  damask- 
covered  chairs,  overturned  tables,  and  brushed 
bric-a-brac  from  mantles  and  walls.  “It  would 
have  done  Mr.  Wilberforce’s  heart  good,”  writes 
a  cynical  observer,  “to  have  seen  a  stout  black 
wench  eating  in  this  free  country  a  jelly  with  a 
gold  spoon  at  the  President’s  House.”  Only  when 
some  thoughtful  person  directed  that  tubs  of 


124  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


punch  be  placed  here  and  there  on  the  lawn  was 
the  congestion  indoors  relieved.  When  it  was  all 
over,  the  White  House  resembled  a  pigsty.  “  Sev¬ 
eral  thousand  dollars’  worth  of  broken  china  and 
cut  glass  and  many  bleeding  noses  attested  the 
fierceness  of  the  struggle.”  It  was  the  people’s 
day,  and  it  was  of  no  avail  for  fastidious  Adams- 
ites  to  lift  their  eyebrows  in  ridicule  or  scorn. 

Those  in  whom  the  establishment  of  the  new 
order  aroused  keenest  apprehensipn  were  the 
officeholders.  A  favorite  theme  of  the  Jackson 
forces  during  the  late  campaign  was  the  abuses 
of  the  patronage,  and  the  General  came  into  office 

fully  convinced  that  ai;,  overhauling  of  the  civil 

‘  <■ 

service  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  contributions 
that  he  could  make  to  his  country’s  welfare.  Even 
if  he  had  been  less  sure  of  this  than  he  was, 
the  pressure  which  office  seekers  and  their  friends 
brought  to  bear  upon  him  would  have  been  ir¬ 
resistible.  Four-fifths  of  the  people  who  flocked 
to  Washington  at  inauguration  time  were  seekers 
after  office  for  themselves  or  their  friends,  and 
from  every  county  and  town  the  country  over 
came  pleas  of  service  rendered  and  claims  for 
reward.  But  Jackson  needed  little  urging.  He 
thought,  and  rightly,  that  many  of  the  incumbents 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


125 


had  grown  lax  in  the  performance  of  their  duties, 
if  indeed  they  had  ever  been  anything  else,  and 
that  fresh  blood  was  needed  in  the  government 
employ.  He  believed  that  short  terms  and  rapid 
rotation  made  for  alertness  and  eflBciency.  He 
felt  that  one  man  had  as  much  right  to  public 
office  as  another,  and  he  was  so  unacquainted  with 
the  tasks  of  administration  as  to  suppose  all  honest 
citizens  equally  capable  of  serving  their  fellowmen 
in  public  station.  As  for  the  grievances  of  persons 
removed,  his  view  was  that  “no  individual  wrong 
is  done  by  removal,  since  neither  appointment  to 
nor  continuance  in  office  is  a  matter  of  right.” 

Shortly  after  the  election  Major  Lewis  wrote  to 
a  friend  that  the  General  was  “resolved  on  making 
a  pretty  clean  sweep  of  the  departments.”  It  is 
expected,  he  added,  that  “he  will  cleanse  the 
Augean  stables,  and  I  feel  pretty  confident  that 
he  will  not  disappoint  the  popular  expectation  in 
this  particular.”  If  a  complete  overturn  was  ever 
really  contemplated,  the  plan  was  not  followed 
up;  and  it  is  more  than  possible  that  it  was  Van 
Buren  who  marked  off  the  limits  beyond  which  it 
would  not  be  expedient  to  go.  None  the  less, 
Jackson’s  removals  far  exceeded  those  made  by 
his  predecessors.  Speaking  broadly,  the  power  of 


126  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


removal  had  never  yet  been  exercised  in  the  Feder¬ 
al  Government  with  offensive  partizanship.  Even 
under  Jefferson,  when  the  holders  of  half  of  the 
offices  were  changed  in  the  space  of  four  years, 
there  were  few  removals  for  political  reasons. 

No  sooner  was  Jackson  in  office,  however,  than 
wholesale  proscription  began.  The  ax  fell  in 
every  department  and  bureau,  and  cut  off  chiefs - 
and  clerks  with  equal  lack  of  mercy.  Age  and 
experience  counted  rather  against  a  man  than  in 
his  favor,  and  rarely  was  any  reason  given  for 
removal  other  than  that  some  one  else  wanted 
the  place.  When  Congress  met,  in  December,  it 
was  estimated  that  a  thousand  persons  had  been 
ousted ;  and  during  the  first  year  of  the  Adminis¬ 
tration  the  number  is  said  to  have  reached  two 
thousand.  The  Post-Office  Department  and  the 
Customs  Service  were  purged  with  special  severity. 
The  sole  principle  on  which  the  new  appointees 
were  selected  was  loyalty  to  Jackson.  Practically 
all  were  inexperienced,  most  were  incompetent, 
and  several  proved  dishonest. 

‘.‘There  has  been,”  wrote  the  President  in  his 
journal  a  few  weeks  after  the  inauguration,  “a 
great  noise  made  about  removals.”  Protest  arose 
not  only  from  the  proscribed  and  their  friends,  but 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


127 


from  the  Adams-Clay  forces  generally,  and  even 
from  some  of  the  more  moderate  Jacksonians. 
“Were  it  not  for  the  outdoor  popularity  of  General 
Jackson,”  wrote  Webster,  “the  Senate  would  have 
negatived  more  than  half  his  nominations.”  As  it 
was,  many  were  rejected;  and  some  of  the  worst 
were,  under  pressure,  withdrawn.  On  the  general 
principle  the  President  held  his  ground.  “It  is 
rotation  in  office,”  he  again  and  again  asserted 
in  all  honesty,  “that  will  perpetuate  our  liberty,” 
and  from  this  conviction  no  amount  of  argument 
or  painful  experience  could  shake  him.  After  1830 
one  hears  less  about  the  subject,  but  only  be¬ 
cause  the  novelty  and  glamor  of  the  new  regime 
had  worn  off. 

Jackson  was  not  the  author  of  the  spoils  system. 
The  device  of  using  the  offices  as  rewards  for 
political  service  had  long  been  familiar  in  the 
state  and  local  governments,  notably  in  New  York. 
What  Jackson  and  his  friends  did  was  simply  to 
carry  over  the  spoils  principle  into  the  National 
Government.  No  more  unfortunate  step  was  ever 
taken  by  an  American  President;  the  task  of  un¬ 
doing  the  mischief  has  been  long  and  laborious. 
Yet  the  spoils  system  was  probably  an  inevitable 
feature  of  the  new  rule  of  the  people;  at  all  events. 


128  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


it  was  accepted  by  all  parties  and  sanctioned  by 
public  sentiment  for  more  than  half  a  century. 

Like  Philip  II  of  Spain,  who  worked  twelve 
hours  a  day  at  the  business  of  being  a  King,  Jack- 
son  took  the  duties  of  his  exalted  post  very  seri¬ 
ously.  No  man  had  ever  accused  him  of  laxness  in 
public  oflBce,  civil  or  military;  on  the  contrary,  his 
superiors  commonly  considered  themselves  fortu¬ 
nate  if  they  could  induce  or  compel  him  to  keep 
his  energies  within  reasonable  bounds.  As  Presi¬ 
dent  he  was  not  without  distressing  shortcomings. 
He  was  self-willed,  prejudiced,  credulous,  petulant. 
But  he  was  honest,  and  he  was  industrious.  No 
President  ever  kept  a  closer  watch  upon  Congress 
to  see  that  the  rights  of  the  executive  were  not 
invaded  or  the  will  of  the  people  thwarted;  and 
his  vigilance  was  rewarded,  not  only  by  his  success 
in  vindicating  the  independence  of  the  executive 
in  a  conflict  whose  effects  are  felt  to  this  day,  but 
by  the  very  respectable  amount  of  legislation 
which  he  contrived  to  obtain  in  the  furtherance 
of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  publie  welfare. 
When  a  rebellious  Congress  took  the  bit  in  its 
teeth,  he  never  hesitated  to  crack  the  whip  over 
its  head.  Sometimes  the  pressure  was  applied 
indirectly,  but  with  none  the  less  effect.  One  of 


THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS 


129 


the  first  acts  of  the  Senate  to  arouse  strong  feelings 
in  the  White  House  was  the  rejection  of  the  nomi¬ 
nation  of  Isaac  Hill  to  be  Second  Comptroller  of 
the  Treasury.  A  New  Hampshire  senatorship  soon 
falling  vacant,  the  President  deftly  brought  about 
the  election  of  Hill  to  the  position;  and  many  a 
gala  hour  he  had  in  later  days  as  Lewis  and  other 
witnesses  described  the  chagrin  of  the  senators  at 
being  obliged  to  accept  as  one  of  their  colleagues 
a  man  whom  they  had  adjudged  unfit  for  a  less 
important  oflSce. 

Much  thought  had  been  bestowed  upon  the  com¬ 
position  of  the  Cabinet,  and  some  of  the  Presi¬ 
dent’s  warmest  supporters  urged  that  he  should 
make  use  of  the  group  as  a  coimcil  of  state,  after 
the  manner  of  his  predecessors.  Jackson’s  pur-* 
poses,  however,  ran  in  a  different  direction.  He 
had  been  on  intimate  terms  with  fewer  than  half 
of  the  members,  and  he  saw  no  reason  why  these 
men,  some  of  whom  were  primarily  the  friends  of 
Calhoun,  should  be  allowed  to  supplant  old  con¬ 
fidants  like  Lewis.  Let  them,  he  reasoned,  go 
about  their  appointed  tasks  as  heads  of  the  admin¬ 
istrative  departments,  while  he  looked  for  counsel 
whithersoever  he  desired.  Hence  the  official 
Cabinet  fell  into  the  background,  and  after  a 


130  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


few  weeks  the  practice  of  holding  meetings  was 
dropped. 

X 

As  advisers  on  party  affairs  and  on  matters  of 
general  policy  the  President  drew  about  himself 
a  heterogeneous  group  of  men  which  the  public 
labeled  the  “Kitchen  Cabinet.”  Included  in  the 
number  were  the  two  members  of  the  regular  Cabi¬ 
net  in  whom  Jackson  had  implicit  confidence,  Van 
Buren  and  Eaton.  Isaac  Hill  was  a  member. 
Amos  Kendall,  a  New  Englander  who  had  lately 
edited  a  J ackson  paper  in  Kentucky,  and  who  now 
found  his  reward  in  the  fourth  auditorship  of  the 
Treasury,  was  another.  William  B.  Lewis,  pre¬ 
vailed  upon  by  Jackson  to  accept  another  auditor- 
ship  along  with  Kendall,  rather  than  to  follow  out 
his  original  intention  to  return  to  his  Tennessee 
plantation,  was  not  only  in  the  Kitchen  Cabinet 
but  was  also  a  member  of  the  President’s  household. 
Duff  Green,  editor  of  the  Telegraph,  and  A.  J. 
Donelson,  the  President’s  nephew  and  secretary, 
were  included  in  the  group;  as  was  also  Francis 
P.  Blair  after,  in  1830,  he  became  editor  of  the 
new  administration  organ,  the  Globe.  It  was  the 
popular  impression  that  the  infiuence  of  these 
men,  especially  of  Lewis  and  Kendall,  was  very 
great  —  that,  indeed,  they  virtually  ruled  the 


THE  “REIGN”  BEGINS 


131 


country.  There  was  some  truth  in  the  supposi¬ 
tion.  In  matters  upon  which  his  mind  was  not 
fully  made  up,  Jackson  was  easily  swayed;  and  his 
most  intimate  “Kitchen”  advisers  were  adepts  at 
playing  upon  his  likes  and  dislikes.  He,  however, 
always  resented  the  insinuation  that  he  was  not 
his  own  master,  and  all  testimony  goes  to  show  that 
when  he  was  once  resolved  upon  a  given  course 
his  friends  were  just  as  powerless  to  stop  him  as 
were  his  enemies. 

The  Jacksonians  were  carried  into  office  on  a 
great  wave  of  popular  enthusiasm,  and  for  the 
time  being  all  the  powers  of  government  were 
theirs.  None  the  less,  their  position  was  imperiled 
almost  from  the  beginning  by  a  breach  within  the 
administration  ranks.  Calhoun  had  contented 
himself  with  reelection  to  the  vice  presidency  in 
1828  on  the  understanding  that,  after  Jackson 
should  have  had  one  term,  the  road  to  the  White 
House  would  be  left  clear  for  himself.  Probably 
Jackson,  when  elected,  fully  expected  Calhoun  to 
be  his  successor.  Before  long,  however,  the  South 
Carolinian  was  given  ground  for  apprehension. 
Men  began  to  talk  about  a  second  term  for  Jack- 
son,  and  the  White  House  gave  no  indication  of  dis¬ 
approval.  Even  more  disconcerting  was  the  large 


132  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


place  taken  in  the  new  regime  by  Van  Buren.  The 
“little  magician”  held  the  chief  post  in  the  Cabi¬ 
net;  he  was  in  the  confidence  of  the  President  as 
Calhoun  was  not;  there  were  multiplying  indica¬ 
tions  that  he  was  aiming  at  the  presidency;  and 
if  he  were  to  enter  the  race  he  would  be  hard  to 
beat,  for  by  general  admission  he  was  the  coun¬ 
try’s  most  astute  politician.  With  every  month 
that  passed  the  Vice  President’s  star  was  in  graver 
danger  of  eclipse. 

Several  curious  circumstances  worked  together 
to  widen  the  breach  between  the  Calhoun  and 
Van  Buren  elements  and  at  the  same  time  to 
bring  the  President  definitely  into  the  ranks  of 
the  New  Yorker’s  supporters.  One  was  the  con¬ 
troversy  over  the  social  status  of  “Peggy”  Eaton. 
Peggy  was  the  daughter  of  a  tavern  keeper,  William 
O’Neil,  at  whose  hostelry  both  Jackson  and  Eaton 
had  lived  when  they  were  senators.  Her  first  hus¬ 
band,  a  purser  in  the  navy,  committed  suicide 
at  sea;  and  Washington  gossips  said  that  he  was 
driven  to  the  act  by  chagrin  caused  by  his  wife’s 
misconduct,  both  before  and  after  her  marriage. 
On  the  eve  of  Jackson’s  inauguration  the  widow 
became  Mrs.  Eaton,  and  certain  disagreeable  ru¬ 
mors  connecting  the  names  of  the  two  were  con- 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


133 


firmed  in  the  public  mind.  When  Eaton  was  made 
Secretary  of  War,  society  shrugged  its  shoulders 
and  wondered  what  sort  of  figure  “Peg  O’Neil” 
would  cut  in  Cabinet  circles.  The  question  was 
soon  answered.  At  the  first  ofBcial  functions 
Mrs.  Eaton  was  received  with  studied  neglect  by 
the  wives  of  the  other  Cabinet  officers;  and  all 
refused  either  to  call  on  her  or  to  receive  her  in 
their  homes. 

Jackson  was  furious.  It  was  enough  for  him 
that  Mrs.  Jackson  had  thought  well  of  the  sus¬ 
pected  woman,  and  all  his  gallantry  rose  in  her 
defense.  Professing  to  regard  the  attitude  of  the 
protesters  as  nothing  less  than  an  affront  to  his 
Administration,  he  called  upon  the  men  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  upon  the  Vice  President,  to  remon¬ 
strate  with  their  wives  in  Mrs.  Eaton’s  behalf. 
But  if  any  such  remonstrances  were  made,  nothing 
came  of  them .  ‘  ‘  For  once  in  his  life,  Andrew  J ack- 

son  was  defeated.  Creeks  and  Spaniards  and  Red¬ 
coats  he  could  conquer,  but  the  ladies  of  Washington 
never  surrendered,  and  Peggy  Eaton,  though  her 
affairs  became  a  national  question,  never  got  into 
Washington  society.”*  The  political  effect  of 
the  episode  was  considerable.  Van  Buren  was 

*  Brown,  Andrew  Jackson,  p.  127. 


134  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


a  widower,  and,  having  no  family  to  object,  he 
showed  Mrs.  Eaton  all  possible  courtesy.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mrs.  Calhoun  was  the  leader  of  those 
who  refused  Mrs.  Eaton  recognition.  Jackson  was 
not  slow  to  note  these  facts,  and  his  opinion  of  Van 
Buren  steadily  rose,  while  he  set  down  Calhoun  as 
an  obdurate  member  of  the  “conspiracy.” 

Throughout  the  winter  of  1829-30  the  Calhoun 
and  Van  Buren  factions  kept  up  a  contest  which 
daily  became  more  acrimonious  and  open.  Al¬ 
ready  the  clique  around  the  President  had  secretly 
decided  that  in  1832  he  must  run  again,  with  Van 
Buren  as  a  mate,  and  that  the  New  Yorker  should 
be  the  presidential  candidate  in  1836.  Though 
irritated  by  the  Vice  President’s  conduct  in  the 
Eaton  affair  and  in  other  matters,  Jackson  threw 
over  the  understanding  of  1828  with  reluctance. 
Even  when,  on  the  last  day  of  1829,  his  friends, 
alarmed  by  the  state  of  his  health,  persuaded  him 
to  write  a  letter  to  a  Tennessee  judge  warmly  com¬ 
mending  Van  Buren  and  expressing  grave  doubts 
about  the  South  Carolinian  —  a  statement  which, 
in  the  event  of  worst  fears  being  realized,  would  be 
of  the  utmost  value  to  the  Van  Buren  men  —  he 
was  unwilling  to  go  the  full  length  of  an  open  break. 

But  Lewis  and  his  coworkers  were  craftily  laying 


THE  “  REIGN  ”  BEGINS 


135 


the  train  of  powder  that  would  lead  to  an  explosion, 
and  in  the  spring  of  1830  they  were  ready  to  apply 
the  match.  When  the  President  had  been  worked 
up  to  the  right  stage  of  suspicion,  it  was  suddenly 
made  known  to  him  that  it  was  Calhoun,  not  Craw¬ 
ford,  who  in  Monroe’s  Cabinet  circle  in  1818 
had  urged  that  the  conqueror  of  Florida  be  cen¬ 
sured  for  his  bold  deeds.  This  had  the  full  effect 
desired.  Jackson  made  a  peremptory  demand 
upon  the  Vice  President  for  an  explanation  of  his 
perfidy.  Calhoun  responded  in  a  letter  which  ex¬ 
plained  and  explained,  yet  got  nowhere.  W’here- 
upon  Jackson  replied  in  a  haughty  communication, 
manifestly  prepared  by  the  men  who  were  engineer¬ 
ing  the  whole  business,  declaring  the  former  Sec¬ 
retary  guilty  of  the  most  reprehensible  duplicity 
and  severing  all  relations  with  him.  This  meant 
the  end  of  Calhoun’s  hopes,  at  all  events  for  the 
present.  He  could  never  be  President  while  Jack¬ 
son’s  influence  lasted.  Van  Buren  had  won;  and 
the  embittered  South  Carolinian  could  only  turn  for 
solace  to  the  nullification  movement,  in  which  he 
was  already  deeply  engulfed. 

Pursuing  their  plans  to  the  final  stroke,  the 
Administration  managers  forced  a  reconstruction 
of  the  Cabinet,  and  all  of  Calhoun’s  supporters 


136  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


were  displaced.  Louis  McLane  of  Delaware  be¬ 
came  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  Lewis  Cass  of 
Michigan,  Secretary  of  War;  Levi  Woodbury  of 
New  Hampshire,  Secretary  of  the  Navy;  and  Roger 
B.  Taney  of  Maryland,  Attorney-General.  Van 
Buren  also  retired,  in  conformity  with  Jackson’s 
announced  intention  not  to  have  any  one  in  the 
Cabinet  who  was  a  candidate  for  the  succession; 
and  Edward  Livingston,  Jackson’s  old  Louisiana 
friend,  became  Secretary  of  State. 

It  was  decided  that  a  fitting  post  for  a  successor 
while  awaiting  his  turn  —  particularly  for  one  who 
was  not  popular  —  would  be  the  ministership  to 
Great  Britain;  and  Van  Buren  duly  traveled  to 
London  to  take  up  the  duties  of  this  position.  But 
when  the  appointment  was  submitted  to  the  Sen¬ 
ate,  Calhoun’s  friends  adroitly  managed  matters  so 
that  the  Vice  President  should  have  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  preventing  confirmation  by  his  casting  vote. 
“It  will  kill  him,  sir,  kill  him  dead,”  declared  the 
vengeful  South  Carolinian  to  a  doubting  friend. 
“He  will  never  kick,  sir,  never  kick.”  But  no 
greater  tactical  error  could  have  been  committed. 
Benton  showed  the  keener  insight  when  he  in¬ 
formed  the  jubilant  Calhoun  men  that  they  had 
“broken  a  minister,”  only  to  elect  a  Vice  President. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE 

The  United  States  came  out  of  her  second  war  with 
Great  Britain  a  proud  and  fearless  nation,  though 
her  record  was  not,  on  its  face,  glorious.  She  went 
to  war  shockingly  unprepared;  the  people  were  of 
divided  opinion,  and  one  great  section  was  in  open 
revolt;  the  military  leaders  were  without  distinc¬ 
tion;  the  soldiery  was  poorly  trained  and  equipped; 
finances  were  disordered;  the  operations  on  land 
were  mostly  failures;  and  the  privateers,  which 
achieved  wonders  in  the  early  stages  of  the  contest, 
were  driven  to  cover  long  before  the  close;  for  the 
restoration  of  peace  the  nation  had  to  thank  Eng¬ 
land’s  war  weariness  far  more  than  her  own  suc¬ 
cesses  ;  and  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  did  not  so  much  as 
mention  impressment,  captures,  or  any  of  the  other 
matters  mainly  at  issue  when  the  war  was  begun. 
Peace,  however,  brought  gratitude,  enthusiasm, 
optimism.  Defeats  were  quickly  forgotten;  and 

J37 


138  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Jackson’s  victory  at  New  Orleans  atoned  for  the 
humiliations  of  years.  After  all,  the  contest  had 
been  victorious  in  its  larger  outcome,  for  the  new 
world  conditions  were  such  as  to  insure  that  the 
claims  and  practices  which  had  troubled  the  re¬ 
lations  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
would  never  be  revived.  The  carpings  of  critics 
were  drowned  in  the  public  rejoicings.  The  Hart¬ 
ford  Convention  dissolved  unwept  and  unsung. 
Flushed  with  pride  and  confidence,  the  country 
entered  upon  a  new  and  richer  epoch. 

The  dominant  tone  of  this  dawning  period  was 
nationalism.  The  nation  was  to  be  made  great 
and  rich  and  free;  sectional  interests  and  ambi¬ 
tions  were  to  be  merged  in  the  greater  national 
purpose.  Congress  voiced  the  sentiment  of  the 
day  by  freely  laying  tariffs  to  protect  newly  risen 
manufactures,  by  appropriating  money  for  “in¬ 
ternal  improvements,”  by  establishing  a  second 
United  States  Bank,  and  by  giving  full  support 
to  the  annexation  of  territory  for  the  adjustment 
of  border  difficulties  and  the  extension  of  the  coun¬ 
try  to  its  natural  frontiers. 

Under  the  leadership  of  John  Marshall,  the 
Supreme  Court  handed  down  an  imposing  series  of 
decisions  restricting  the  powers  of  the  States  and 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  139 


% 

throwing  open  the  floodgates  for  the  expansion  of 
national  functions  and  activities.  Statesmen  of  all 
sections  put  the  nation  flrst  in  their  plans  and 
policies  as  they  had  not  always  done  in  earlier  days. 
John  C.  Calhoun  was  destined  shortly  to  take  rank 
as  the  greatest  of  sectionahsts.  Nevertheless,  be¬ 
tween  1815  and  1820  he  voted  for  protective  tariffs, 
brought  in  a  great  bill  for  internal  improvements, 
and  won  from  John  Quincy  Adams  praise  for  being 
“above  all  sectional .  .  .  prejudices  more  than  any 
other  statesman  of  this  union”  with  whom  he 
“had  ever  acted.” 

The  differences  between  the  nationalist  and 
state  rights  schools  were,  however,  deep-rooted  — 
altogether  too  fundamental  to  be  obliterated  by 
even  the  nationalizing  swing  of  the  war  period;  and 
in  a  brief  time  the  old  controversy  of  Hamilton  and 
Jefferson  was  renewed  on  the  former  lines.  The 
pull  of  political  tradition  and  of  sectional  inter¬ 
est  was  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  In  the  commer¬ 
cial  and  industrial  East  tradition  and  interest 
supported,  in  general,  the  doctrine  of  broad  na¬ 
tional  powers;  and  the  same  was  true  of  the  West 
and  Northwest.  The  South,  however,  inclined  to 
limited  national  powers,  large  functions  for  the 
States,  and  such  a  construction  of  the  Constitution 


140  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


as  would  give  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  in  all  cases 
to  the  States. 

The  political  theory  current  south  of  the  Po¬ 
tomac  and  the  Ohio  made  of  state  rights  a  fe¬ 
tish.  Yet  the  powerful  sectional  reaction  which 
set  in  after  1820  against  the  nationalizing  tend¬ 
ency  had  as  its  main  impetus  the  injustice  which 
the  Southern  people  felt  had  been  done  to  them 
through  the  use  of  the  nation’s  larger  powers. 
They  objected  to  the  protective  tariff  as  a  device 
which  not  only  brought  the  South  no  benefit  but 
interfered  with  its  markets  and  raised  the  cost  of 
certain  of  its  staple  supplies.  They  opposed  in¬ 
ternal  improvements  at  national  expense  because 
of  their  consolidating  tendency,  and  because  few 
of  the  projects  carried  out  were  of  large  advan¬ 
tage  to  the  Southern  people.  They  regarded  the 
National  Bank  as  at  best  useless;  and  they  re¬ 
sisted  federal  legislation  imposing  restrictions  on 
slavery  as  prejudicial  to  vested  rights  in  the 
“peculiar  institution.” 

After  1820  the  pendulum  swung  rapidly  back 
toward  particularism.  State  rights  sentiment  was 
freely  expressed  by  men,  both  Southern  and  North¬ 
ern,  whose  views  commanded  respect;  and  in  more 
than  one  State  —  notably  in  Ohio  and  Georgia  — 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  141 


bold  actions  proclaimed  this  sentiment  to  be  no 
mere  matter  of  academic  opinion.  Ohio  in  1819 
forcibly  collected  a  tax  on  the  United  States  Bank 
in  defiance  of  the  Supreme  Court’s  decision  in 
the  case  of  M’Culloch  vs.  Maryland;  and  in  1821 
her  Legislature  reaflBrmed  the  doctrines  of  the  Vir¬ 
ginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions  and  persisted  in  re¬ 
sistance,  even  after  the  Supreme  Court  had  ren¬ 
dered  a  decision'  specifically  against  the  position 
which  the  State  had  taken.  Judge  Roane  of 
Virginia,  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Richmond 
Enquirer,  argued  that  the  Federal  Union  was  a 
compact  among  the  States  and  that  the  national¬ 
istic  reasoning  of  his  fellow  Virginian,  Marshall, 
in  the  foregoing  decisions  was  false;  and  Jefferson 
heartily  endorsed  his  views.  In  Cohens  vs.  Vir¬ 
ginia,  in  1821,  the  Supreme  Court  held  that  it  had 
appellate  jurisdiction  in  a  case  decided  by  a  state 
court  where  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States  were  involved,  even  though  a  State  was 
a  party;  whereupon  the  Virginia  House  of  Dele¬ 
gates  declared  that  the  State’s  lawyers  had  been 
right  in  their  contention  that  final  construction 
of  the  Constitution  lay  with  the  courts  of  the 
States.  Jefferson,  also,  gave  this  assertion  his 

^  Osborn  vs.  Bank  of  the  United  States. 


142  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


support,  and  denounced  the  centralizing  tenden¬ 
cies  of  the  Judiciary,  “which,  working  like  gravity 
without  any  intermission,  is  to  press  us  at  last  into 
one  consolidated  mass.” 

In  1825  Jefferson  actually  proposed  that  the 
Virginia  Legislature  should  pass  a  set  of  resolu¬ 
tions  pronouncing  null  and  void  the  whole  body  of 
federal  laws  on  the  subject  of  internal  improve¬ 
ments.  The  Georgia  Legislature,  aroused  by  grow¬ 
ing  antislavery  activities  in  the  North,  declared 
in  1827  that  the  remedy  lay  in  “a  firm  and  deter¬ 
mined  union  of  the  people  and  the  States  of  the 
South”  against  interference  with  the  institutions 
of  that  section  of  the  country.  Already  Georgia 
had  placed  herself  in  an  attitude  of  resistance  to 
the  Federal  Government  upon  the  rights  of  the 
Indians  within  her  borders,  and  within  the  next 
decade  she  repeatedly  nullified  decisions  of  the 
federal  courts  on  this  subject.  In  1828  the  South 
Carolina  Legislature  adopted  a  series  of  eight  reso¬ 
lutions  denouncing  the  lately  enacted  “tariff  of 
abominations,”  and  a  report,  originally  drafted  by 
Calhoun  and  commonlv  known  as  The  South  Caro- 
Una  Exposition,  in  which  were  to  be  found  all  of  the 
essentials  of  the  constitutional  argument  under¬ 
lying  the  nullification  movement  of  1832. 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  143 


When  Jackson  went  into  the  White  House,  the 
country  was  therefore  fairly  buzzing  with  dis¬ 
cussions  of  constitutional  questions.  What  was 
the  true  character  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the 
Union  established  under  it?  Were  the  States 
sovereign?  Who  should  determine  the  limits  of 
state  and  federal  powers?  What  remedy  had  a 
State  against  unconstitutional  measures  of  the 
National  Government?  Who  should  say  when  an 
act  was  unconstitutional? 

The  South,  in  particular,  was  in  an  irritable  frame 
of  mind.  Agriculture  was  in  a  state  of  depression; 
manufacturing  was  not  developing  as  had  been 
expected;  the  steadily  mounting  tariffs  were  work¬ 
ing  economic  disadvantage;  the  triumph  of  mem¬ 
bers  of  Congress  and  of  the  Supreme  Court  who 
favored  a  loose  construction  of  the  Constitution 
indicated  that  there  would  be  no  end  of  acts  and 
decisions  contrary  to  what  the  South  regarded 
as  her  own  interests.  Some  apprehensive  people 
looked  to  Jackson  for  reassurance.  But  his  first 
message  to  Congress  assumed  that  the  tariff  would 
continue  as  it  was,  and,  indeed,  gave  no  promise  of 
relief  in  any  direction. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  the  whole  contro¬ 
versy  flared  up  unexpectedly  in  one  of  the  greatest 


144  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


debates  ever  heard  on  the  floor  of  our  Congress  or 
in  the  legislative  halls  of  any  country.  On  Decem¬ 
ber  29,  1829,  Senator  Samuel  A.  Foote  of  Con¬ 
necticut  offered  an  innocent-looking  resolution  pro¬ 
posing  a  temporary  restriction  of  the  sale  of  public 
lands  to  such  lands  as  had  already  been  placed  on 
the  market.  The  suggestion  was  immediately  re¬ 
sented  by  western  members,  who  professed  to  see 
in  it  a  desire  to  check  the  drain  of  eastern  popula¬ 
tion  to  the  West;  and  upon  the  reconvening  of 
Congress  following  the  Christmas  recess  Senator 
Benton  of  Missouri  voiced  in  no  uncertain  terms 
the  indignation  of  his  State  and  section.  The  dis¬ 
cussion  might  easily  have  led  to  nothing  more  than 
the  laying  of  the  resolution  on  the  table;  and  in  that 
event  we  should  never  have  heard  of  it.  But  it 
happened  that  one  of  the  senators  from  South 
Carolina,  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  saw  in  the  situation 
what  he  took  to  be  a  chance  to  deliver  a  telling 
blow  for  his  own  discontented  section.  On  the 
19th  of  January  he  got  the  floor,  and  at  the  fag- 
end  of  a  long  day  he  held  his  colleagues’  attention 
for  an  hour. 

The  thing  that  Hayne  had  in  mind  to  do  prima¬ 
rily  was  to  draw  the  West  to  the  side  of  the  South, 
in  common  opposition  to  the  East.  He  therefore 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  145 


vigorously  attacked  the  Foote  resolution,  agreeing 
with  Benton  that  it  was  an  expression  of  Eastern 
jealousy  and  that  its  adoption  would  greatly  re¬ 
tard  the  development  of  the  West.  He  laid  much 
stress  upon  the  common  interests  of  the  Western 
and  Southern  people  and  openly  invited  the  one 
to  an  alliance  with  the  other.  He  deprecated  the 
tendencies  of  the  Federal  Government  to  consoli¬ 
dation  and  declared  himself  “opposed,  in  any 
shape,  to  all  unnecessary  extension  of  the  powers  or 
the  influence  of  the  Legislature  or  Executive  of  the 
Union  over  the  States,  or  the  people  of  the  States.” 
Throughout  the  speech  ran  side  by  side  the  twin 
ideas  of  strict  construction  and  state  rights;  in 
every  sentence  breathed  the  protest  of  South 
Carolina  against  the  protective  tariff. 

Just  as  the  South  Carolinian  began  speaking,  a 
shadow  darkened  the  doorway  of  the  Senate  cham¬ 
ber,  and  Daniel  Webster  stepped  casually  inside. 
The  Massachusetts  member  was  at  the  time  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  the  preparation  of  certain  cases  that  were 
coming  up  before  the  Supreme  Court,  and  he  had 
given  little  attention  either  to  Foote’s  resolution 
or  to  the  debate  upon  it.  What  he  now  heard, 
however,  quickly  drove  Carver’s  Lessee  vs.  John 

Jacob  Astor  quite  out  of  his  mind.  Aspersions 
10 


4 


146  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


were  being  cast  upon  his  beloved  New  England; 
the  Constitution  was  under  attack;  the  Union 
itself  was  being  called  in  question.  Webster’s 
decision  was  instantaneous:  Hayne  must  be  an¬ 
swered  —  and  answered  while  his  arguments  were 
still  hot. 

“Seeing  the  true  grounds  of  the  Constitution 
thus  attacked,”  the  New  Englander  subsequently 
explained  at  a  public  dinner  in  New  York,  “I 
raised  my  voice  in  its  favor,  I  must  confess,  with 
no  preparation  or  previous  intention.  I  can  hardly 
say  that  I  embarked  in  the  contest  from  a  sense  of 
duty.  It  was  an  instantaneous  impulse  of  inclina¬ 
tion,  not  acting  against  duty,  I  trust,  but  hardly 
waiting  for  its  suggestions.  I  felt  it  to  be  a  contest 
for  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution,  and  I  was 
ready  to  enter  into  it,  not  thinking,  or  caring,  per¬ 
sonally,  how  I  came  out.”  In  a  speech  charac¬ 
terized  by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  as  “one  of  the  most 
effective  retorts,  one  of  the  strongest  pieces  of  de¬ 
structive  criticism,  ever  uttered  in  the  Senate,” 
Webster  now  defended  his  section  against  the 
charges  of  selfishness,  jealousy,  and  snobbishness 
that  had  been  brought  against  it,  and  urged  that 
the  Senate  and  the  people  be  made  to  hear  no  more 
utterances,  such  as  those  of  Hayne,  tending  “to 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  147 


bring  the  Union  into  discussion,  as  a  mere  question 
of  present  and  temporary  expediency.” 

The  debate  was  now  fairly  started,  and  the  word 
quickly  went  round  that  a  battle  of  the  giants  was 
impending.  Each  foeman  was  worthy  of  the  other’s 
steel.  Hayne  was  representative  of  all  that  was 
proudest  and  best  in  the  South  Carolina  of  his  day. 
“Nature  had  lavished  on  him,”  says  Benton,  “all 
the  gifts  which  lead  to  eminence  in  public,  and 
to  happiness  in  private,  life.”  He  was  tall,  well- 
proportioned,  graceful;  his  features  were  clean-cut 
and  expressive  of  both  intelligence  and  amiability; 
his  manner  was  cordial  and  unaffected;  his  mind 
was  vigorous  and  his  industry  unremitting.  Fur¬ 
thermore,  he  was  an  able  lawyer,  a  fluent  orator, 
a  persuasive  debater,  an  adroit  parliamentarian. 
Upon  entering  the  Senate  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-two,  he  had  won  prompt  recognition  by  a 
powerful  speech  in  opposition  to  the  tariff  of  1824 ; 
and  by  1828,  when  he  was  reelected,  he  was  known 
as  the  South’s  ablest  and  boldest  spokesman  in  the 
upper  chamber. 

Webster  was  an  equally  fitting  representative  of 
rugged  New  England.  Born  nine  years  earlier  than 
Hayne,  he  struggled  up  from  a  boyhood  of  physi¬ 
cal  frailty  and  poverty  to  an  honored  place  at  the 


148  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Boston  bar,  and  in  1812,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  was 
elected  to  Congress.  To  the  Senate  he  brought, 
in  1827,  qualities  that  gave  him  at  once  a  pre¬ 
eminent  position.  His  massive  head,  beetling 
brow,  flashing  eye,  and  stately  carriage  attracted 
instant  attention  wherever  he  went.  His  physi¬ 
cal  impressiveness  was  matched  by  lofty  traits  of 
character  and  by  extraordinary  powers  of  intel¬ 
lect;  and  by  1830  he  had  acquired  a  reputation 
for  forensic  ability  and  legal  acumen  which  were 
second  to  none. 

When,  therefore,  on  the  21st  of  January,  Hayne 
rose  to  deliver  his  First  Reply,  and  Webster  five 
days  later  took  the  floor  to  begin  his  Second  Reply 
—  probably  the  greatest  effort  in  the  history  of 
American  legislative  oratory  —  the  little  chamber 
then  used  by  the  Senate,  but  nowadays  given  over 
to  the  Supreme  Court,  presented  a  spectacle  fairly 
to  be  described  as  historic.  Every  senator  who 
could  possibly  be  present  answered  at  roll  call. 
Here  were  Webster’s  more  notable  fellow  New 
Englanders  —  John  Holmes  of  Maine,  Levi  Wood¬ 
bury  of  New  Hampshire,  Horatio  Seymour  of  Ver¬ 
mont.  There  were  Mahlon  Dickerson  and  Theo¬ 
dore  Frelinghuysen  of  New  Jersey,  and  John  M. 
Clayton  of  Delaware.  Here,  John  Tyler  of  Vir- 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  149 


ginia,  John  Forsyth  of  Georgia,  William  R.  King  of 
Alabama;  there,  Hugh  L.  White  and  Felix  Grundy 
of  Tennessee,  and  Thomas  H.  Benton  of  Missouri. 
From  the  President’s  chair  Hayne’s  distinguished 
fellow  South  Carolinian,  Calhoun,  looked  down  up¬ 
on  the  assemblage  with  emotions  which  he  vainly 
strove  to  conceal. 

During  the  later  stages  of  the  discussion  people 
of  prominence  from  adjoining  States  filled  the  ho¬ 
tels  of  the  city  and  bombarded  the  senators  with 
requests  for  tickets  of  admission  to  the  senate 
galleries.  Lines  were  formed,  and  when  the  doors 
were  thrown  open  in  the  morning  every  available 
inch  of  space  was  instantly  filled  with  interested 
and  excited  spectators.  So  great  was  the  pressure 
that  all  rules  governing  the  admission  of  the  public 
were  waived.  On  the  day  of  Webster’s  greatest 
effort  ladies  were  admitted  to  the  seats  of  the  mem¬ 
bers,  and  the  throng  overflowed  through  the  lob¬ 
bies  and  down  the  long  stairways,  quite  beyond 
hearing  distance.  In  the  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives  the  Speaker  remained  at  his  post,  but  the 
attendance  was  so  scant  that  no  business  could 
be  transacted. 

Hayne’s  speech  —  begun  on  the  21st  and  con¬ 
tinued  on  the  25  th  of  January  —  was  the  fullest  and 


150  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


most  forceful  exposition  of  the  doctrines  of  strict 
construction,,  state  rights,  and  nullification  that 
had  ever  fallen  upon  the  ear  of  Congress.  It  was 
no  mere  piece  of  abstract  argumentation.  Hayne 
was  not  the  man  to  shrink  from  personalities,  and 
he  boldly  accused  the  New  England  Federalists  of 
disloyalty  and  Webster  himself  of  complicity  in 
“bargain  and  corruption.”  Thrusting  and  parry¬ 
ing,  he  stirred  his  supporters  to  wild  enthusiasm 
and  moved  even  the  solemn- visaged  Vice  President 
to  smiles  of  approval.  The  nationalists  winced  and 
wondered  whether  their  champion  would  be  able  to 
measure  up  with  so  keen  an  antagonist.  Webster 
sat  staring  into  space,  breaking  his  reverie  only  now 
and  then  to  make  a  few  notes. 

The  debate  reached  a  climax  in  Webster’s  power¬ 
ful  Second  Reply,  on  the  26th  and  27th  of  January. 
Everything  was  favorable  for  a  magnificent  effort : 
the  hearing  was  brilliant,  the  theme  was  vital,  the 
speaker  was  in  the  prime  of  his  matchless  powers. 
On  the  desk  before  the  New  Englander  as  he  arose 
were  only  five  small  letter-paper  pages  of  notes. 
He  spoke  with  such  immediate  preparation  merely 
as  the  labors  of  a  single  evening  made  possible. 
But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  forensic  effort 
in  our  history  was  ever  more  thoroughly  prepared 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 


Daguerreotype  from  life,  taken  in  1851.  In  the  collections  of  the 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 


■  i  '"'ifi  RKIGK  AN''>3EW  JaCKSON 

of  '■  J  vi-.;  of  st‘'ic:i: 
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THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  151 


for,  because  Webster  lived  bis  speech  before  he 
spoke  it.  The  origins  of  the  Federal  Union,  the 
theories  and  applications  of  the  Constitution,  the 
history  and  bearings  of  nullification  —  these  were 
matters  with  which  years  of  study,  observation, 
professional  activity,  and  association  with  men 
had  made  him  absolutely  familiar.  If  any  living 
American  could  answer  Hayne  and  his  fellow 
partizans,  Webster  was  the  man  to  do  it. 

Forty-eight  in  the  total  of  seventy-three  pages  of 
print  filled  by  this  speech  are  taken  up  with  a  de¬ 
fense  of  New  England  against  the  Southern  charges 
of  sectionalism  and  disloyalty.  Few  utterances 
of  the  time  are  more  familiar  than  the  sentences 
bringing  this  part  of  the  oration  to  a  close:  “Mr. 
President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts;  she  needs  none.  There  she  is.  Behold 
her,  and  judge  for  yourselves.  There  is  her  history ; 
the  world  knows  it  by  heart.  .  .  .  There  is  Bos¬ 
ton,  and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and  Bunker  Hill; 
and  there  they  will  remain  forever.”  If  this  had 
been  all,  the  speech  would  have  been  only  a  spirited 
defense  of  the  good  name  of  a  section  and  would 
hardly  have  gained  immortality.  It  was  the  Union, 
however,  that  most  needed  defense;  and  for  that 
service  the  orator  reserved  his  grandest  efforts. 


152  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


From  the  opening  of  the  discussion  Webster’s 
object  had  been  to  “force  from  Hayne  or  his  sup¬ 
porters  a  full,  frank,  clear-cut  statement  of  what 
nullification  meant;  and  then,  by  opposing  to  this 
doctrine  the  Constitution  as  he  understood  it,  to 
show  its  utter  inadequacy  and  fallaciousness  either 
as  constitutional  law  or  as  a  practical  working 
scheme.”*  In  the  Southerner’s  First  Reply  Web¬ 
ster  found  the  statement  that  he  wanted;  he  now 
proceeded  to  demolish  it.  Many  pages  of  print 
would  be  required  to  reproduce,  even  in  substance, 
the  arguments  which  he  employed.  Yet  the  fun¬ 
damentals  are  so  simple  that  they  can  be  stated 
in  a  dozen  lines.;  Sovereignty,  under  our  form  of 
government,  resides  in  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  jThe  exercise  of  the  powers  of  sovereignty 
is  entrusted  by  the  people  partly  to  the  National 
Government  and  partly  to  the  state  Governments. 
jThis  division  of  functions  is  made  in  the  federal 
Constitution.  ^  If  differences  arise,  as  they  must,  as 
to  the  precise  nature  of  the  division,  the  decision 
rests  —  not  with  the  state  legislatures,  as  Hayne 
had  said  —  but  with  the  federal  courts,  which 
were  established  in  part  for  that  very  purpose. 
No  State  has  a  right  to  “nullify”  a  federal  law; 

*  MacDonald,  Jacksonian  Democracy,  p.  98. 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  153 


if  one  State  has  this  right,  all  must  have  it,  and  the 
result  can  only  be  conflicts  that  would  plunge  the 
Government  into  chaos  and  the  people  ultimately 
into  war.  If  the  Constitution  is  not  what  the  people 
want,  they  can  amend  it;  but  as  long  as  it  stands, 
the  Constitution  and  all  lawful  government  under 
it  must  be  obeyed. 

The  incomparably  eloquent  peroration  pene¬ 
trated  to  the  heart  of  the  whole  matter.  The  logic 
of  nullification  was  disunion.  Fine  theories  might 
be  spun  and  dazzling  phrases  made  to  convince 
men  otherwise,  but  the  hard  fact  would  remain. 

Hayne,  Calhoun,  and  their  like  were  playing 
* 

with  fire.  Already  they  were  boldly  weighing  “the 
chances  of  preserving  liberty  when  the  bonds  that 
unite  us  together  shall  be  broken  asunder”;  al¬ 
ready  they  were  hanging  over  the  precipice  of 
disunion,  to  see  whether  they  could  “fathom 
the  depth  of  the  abyss  below.”  The  last  power¬ 
ful  words  of  the  speech  were,  therefore,  a  glorifi¬ 
cation  of  the  Union; 

While  the  Union  lasts,  we  have  high,  exciting,  gratifying 
prospects  spread  out  before  us,  for  us  and  our  children. 
Beyond  that  I  seek  not  to  penetrate  the  veil.  God  grant 
that  in  my  day,  at  least,  that  curtain  may  not  rise.  .  .  . 
When  my  eyes  shall  be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time 


154  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


the  sun  in  heaven,  may  I  not  see  him  shining  on  the 
broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once  glorious 
Union;  on  States  dissevered,  discordant,  belligerent;  on 
a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be, 
in  fraternal  blood!  Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering 
glance,  rather,  behold  the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  Repub¬ 
lic,  now  known  and  honored  throughout  the  earth,  still 
full  high  advanced,  its  arms  and  trophies  streaming  in 
their  original  lustre,  not  a  stripe  erased  or  polluted,  nor 
a  single  star  obscured,  bearing  for  its  motto  no  such 
miserable  interrogatory  as  “What  is  all  this  worth?’’ 
nor  those  other  words  of  delusion  and  folly  “Liberty 
first  and  Union  afterward”;  but  everywhere,  spread  all 
over  in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample 
folds,  as  they  fioat  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and 
in  every  wind  under  the  whole  heavens,  that  other  senti¬ 
ment,  dear  to  every  American  heart  —  “Liberty  and 
Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable!” 

Undaunted  by  the  flood  of  eloquence  that  for 
four  hours  held  the  Senate  spellbound,  Hayne 
replied  in  a  long  speech  that  touched  the  zenith 
of  his  own  masterful  powers  of  argumentation. 
He  conceded  nothing.  Each  State,  he  still  main¬ 
tained,  is  an  independent  sovereignty  ’’ ;  the  Union 
is  based  upon  a  compact;  and  every  party  to  the 
compact  has  a  right  to  interpret  for  itself  the 
terms  of  the  agreement  by  which  all  are  bound  to¬ 
gether.  In  a  short,  crisp  speech,  traversing  the 
main  ground  which  he  had  already  gone  over. 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  155 


Webster  exposed  the  inconsistencies  and  dangers 
involved  in  this  argument;  and  the  debate  was 
over.  The  Foote  resolution,  long  since  forgotten, 
remained  on  the  Senate  calendar  four  months  and 
was  then  tabled.  Webster  went  back  to  his  cases; 
the  politicians  turned  again  to  their  immediate 
concerns;  the  humdrum  of  congressional  busi¬ 
ness  was  resumed;  and  popular  interest  drifted 
to  other  things. 

Both  sides  were  well  satisfied  with  the  presenta¬ 
tion  of  their  views.  Certainly  neither  was  con¬ 
verted  to  the  position  of  the  other.  The  debate 
served,  however,  to  set  before  the  country  with 
greater  clearness  than  ever  before  the  two  great 
systems  of  constitutional  interpretation  that  were 
struggling  for  mastery,  and  large  numbers  of  men 
whose  ideas  had  been  hazy  were  now  led  to  adopt 
thoughtfully  either  the  one  body  of  opinions  or  the 
other.  The  country  was  not  yet  ready  to  follow 
the  controversy  to  the  end  which  Webster  clearly 
foresaw  —  civil  war.  But  each  side  treasured  its 
vitalized  and  enriched  arguments  for  use  in  a  more 
strenuous  day. 

Advantage  in  the  great  discussion  lay  partly  with 
Hayne  and  partly  with  his  brilliant  antagonist. 
On  the  whole,  the  facts  of  history  were  on  the  side 


156  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

of  Hayne.  Webster  attempted  to  argue  from 
the  intent  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  and 
from  early  opinion  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
Union;  but  a  careful  appraisal  of  the  evidence 
hardly  bears  out  his  contentions.  On  economic 
matters  also,  notably  the  operation  of  the  protec¬ 
tive  tariflF,  he  trod  uncertain  ground.  He  realized 
this  fact  and  as  far  as  possible  kept  clear  of  eco¬ 
nomic  discussion.  The  South  had  real  grievances, 
and  Webster  was  well  enough  aware  that  they 
could  not  be  argued  out  of  existence. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Northerner  was  vastly 
superior  to  his  opponent  in  his  handling  of  the 
theoretical  issues  of  constitutional  law;  and  in  his 
exposition  of  the  practical  difficulties  that  would 
attend  the  operation  of  the  principle  of  nullifica¬ 
tion  he  employed  a  fund  of  argument  that  was 
simply  unanswerable.  The  logic  of  the  larger 
phases  of  the  situation  lay,  too,  with  him.  If  the 
Union  for  which  he  pleaded  was  not  the  Union 
which  the  Fathers  intended  to  establish  or  even 
that  which  actually  existed  in  the  days  of  Washing¬ 
ton  and  the  elder  Adams,  it  was  at  all  events  the 
Union  in  which,  by  the  close  of  the  fourth  decade 
under  the  Constitution,  a  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  had  come  to  believe.  It  was 


THE  WEBSTER-HAYNE  DEBATE  157 


the  Union  of  Henry  Clay,  of  Andrew  Jackson,  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  And  the  largest  significance  of 
Webster’s  arguments  in  1830  arises  from  the  defi¬ 
niteness  and  force  which  they  put  into  popular 
convictions  that  until  then  were  vague  and  inartic¬ 
ulate  —  convictions  which,  as  has  been  well  said, 
“went  on  broadening  and  deepening  until,  thirty 
years  afterward,  they  had  a  force  suflScient  to  sus¬ 
tain  the  North  and  enable  her  to  triumph  in  the 
terrible  struggle  which  resulted  in  the  preservation 
of  national  life.”  It  was  the  Second  Reply  to 
Hayne  which,  more  than  any  other  single  event  or 
utterance  between  1789  and  1860,  “compacted  the 
States  into  a  nation.” 


CHAPTER  VIII 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 

It  was  more  than  brilliant  oratory  that  had  drawn 
to  the  Senate  chamber  the  distinguished  audi¬ 
ences  faced  by  Webster  and  Hayne  in  the  great 
debate  of  1830.  The  issues  discussed  touched 
the  vitality  and  permanence  of  the  nation  itseK. 
Nullification  was  no  mere  abstraction  of  the  sena¬ 
tor  from  South  Carolina.  It  was  a  principle 
which  his  State  —  and,  for  aught  one  could  tell, 
his  section  —  was  about  to  put  into  action.  Al¬ 
ready,  in  1830,  the  air  was  tense  with  the  coming 
controversy. 

South  Carolina  had  traveled  a  long  road,  politi¬ 
cally,  since  1789.  In  the  days  of  Washington  and 
the  elder  Adams  the  State  was  strongly  Federalist. 
In  1800  Jefferson  secured  its  electoral  vote.  But 
the  Virginian’s  leadership  was  never  fully  accepted, 
and  even  before  the  Republican  party  had  else¬ 
where  submitted  to  the  inevitable  nationalization 

158 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


159 


the  South  Carolina  membership  was  openly  ar¬ 
rayed  on  the  side  of  a  protective  tariff,  the  Na¬ 
tional  Bank,  and  internal  improvements.  Calhoun 
and  Cheves  were  for  years  among  the  most  ar¬ 
dent  exponents  of  broad  constitutional  construc¬ 
tion;  Hayne  himself  was  elected  to  the  Senate  in 
1822  as  a  nationalist,  and  over  another  candidate 
whose  chief  handicap  was  that  he  had  proposed 
that  his  State  secede  rather  than  submit  to  the 
Missouri  Compromise. 

After  1824  sentiment  rapidly  shifted.  The  cause 
appeared  to  be  the  tariff;  but  in  reality  deeper 
forces  were  at  work.  South  Carolina  was  an  agri¬ 
cultural  State  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  the 
raising  of  cotton  and  rice.  Soil  and  climate  made 
her  such,  and  the  “peculiar  institution”  confirmed 
what  Nature  already  had  decreed.  But  the  plant¬ 
ers  were  now  beginning  to  feel  keenly  the  competi¬ 
tion  of  the  new  cotton  lands  of  the  Gulf  plains. 
As  production  increased,  the  price  of  cotton  fell. 
“In  1816,”  writes  Professor  Turner,  “the  average 
price  of  middling  uplands  .  .  .  was  nearly  thirty 
cents,  and  South  Carolina’s  leaders  favored  the 
tariff;  in  1820  it  was  seventeen  cents,  and  the 
South  saw  in  the  protective  system  a  grievance; 
in  1824  it  was  fourteen  and  three-quarters  cents, 


160  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

and  the  South  Carolinians  denounced  the  tariff  as 
unconstitutional.”  * 

Men  of  the  Clay-Adams  school  argued  that  the 
tariff  stimulated  industry,  doubled  the  profits  of 
agriculture,  augmented  wealth,  and  hence  pro¬ 
moted  the  well-being  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

j[ 

j  The  Southern  planter  was  never  able  to  discover 
!  in  the  protective  system  any  real  advantage  for 
I  himself,  but  as  long  as  the  tariffs  were  moderate 
'  he  was  influenced  by  nationalistic  sentiment  to 
\  accept  them.  The  demand  for  protection  on  the 
part  of  the  Northern  manufacturers  seemed,  how¬ 
ever,  insatiable.  An  act  of  1824  raised  the  duties 
on  cotton  and  woolen  goods.  A  measure  of  1827 
which  applied  to  woolens  the  ruinous  principle 
already  applied  to  cottons  was  passed  by  the  House 
and  was  laid  on  the  table  in  the  Senate  only  by 
the  casting  vote  of  Vice  President  Calhoun.  The 
climax  was  reached  in  the  Tariff  Act  of  1828,  which 
the  Southerners  themselves  loaded  with  objection¬ 
able  provisions  in  the  vain  hope  of  making  it  so 
abominable  that  even  New  England  congressmen 
would  vote  against  it. 

A  few  years  of  such  legislation  suflSced  to  rouse 
the  South  to  a  deep  feeling  of  grievance.  It  was  no 

*  Turner,  The  Rise  of  the  New  West,  p.  325. 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


161 


longer  a  question  of  reasonable  concession  to  the 
general  national  good.  A  vast  artificial  economic 
system  had  been  set  up,  whose  benefits  accrued  to 
the  North  and  whose  burdens  fell  disproportion¬ 
ately  upon  the  South.  The  tone  and  temper  of 
the  manufacturing  sections  and  of  the  agricultural 
West  gave  no  promise  of  a  change  of  policy.  The 
obvious  conclusion  was  that  the  planting  interests 
must  find  some  means  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear 
for  their  own  relief. 

The  means  which  they  found  was  nullification;! 
and  it  fell  to  South  Carolina,  whose  people  were 
most  ardent  in  their  resentment  of  anything  that  | 
looked  like  discrimination,  to  put  the  remedy  to 
the  test.  The  Legislature  of  this  State  had  made, 
an  early  beginning  by  denouncing  the  tariff  of  1824 
as  unconstitutional.  In  1827  Robert  J.  Turnbull, 
one  of  the  abler  political  leaders,  published  under 
the  title  of  The  Crisis  a  series  of  essays  in  which  he 
boldly  proclaimed  nullification  as  the  remedy.  In 
the  following  summer  Calhoun  put  the  nullifica¬ 
tion  doctrine  into  its  first  systematic  form  in  a 
paper — the  so-called  Exposition — which  for  some 
time  was  known  to  the  public  only  as  the  report  of 
a  committee  of  the  Legislature. 

By  1829  the  State  was  sharply  divided  into  two 

II 


162  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


parties,  the  nationalists  and  the  nullifiers.  All 
« 

were  agreed  that  the  protective  system  was  in¬ 
iquitous  and  that  it  must  be  broken  down.  The 
difference  was  merely  as  to  method.  The  nation¬ 
alists  favored  working  through  the  customary 
channels  of  legislative  reform;  the  nullifiers  urged 
that  the  State  interpose  its  authority  to  prevent 
the  enforcement  of  the  objectionable  laws.  For 
a  time  the  leaders  wavered.  But  the  swing  of 
public  sentiment  in  the  direction  of  nullification 
was  rapid  and  overwhelming,  and  one  by  one  the 
representatives  in  Congress  and  other  men  of  pro¬ 
minence  fell  into  line.  Hayne  and  McDuffie  were 
among  the  first  to  give  it  their  support;  and  Cal¬ 
houn,  while  he  was  for  a  time  held  back  by  his 
political  aspirations  and  by  his  obligations  as  Vice 
President,  came  gradually  to  feel  that  his  political 
future  would  be  worth  little  imless  he  had  the  sup¬ 
port  of  his  own  State. 

As  the  election  of  1828  approached,  the  hope  of 
the  discontented  forces  centered  in  Jackson.  They 
did  not  overlook  the  fact  that  his  record  was  that 
of  a  moderate  protectionist.  But  the  same  was 
true  of  many  South  Carolinians  and  Georgians, 
and  it  seemed  not  at  all  impossible  that,  as  a 
Southern  man  and  a  cotton  planter,  he  should 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


163 


undergo  a  change  of  heart  no  less  decisive  than 
that  which  Hayne  and  Calhoun  had  experienced. 
Efforts  to  draw  him  out,  however,  proved  not  very 
successful.  Lewis  saw  to  it  that  Jackson’s  utter¬ 
ances  while  yet  he  was  a  candidate  were  safely 
colorless ;  and  the  single  mention  of  the  tariff  con¬ 
tained  in  the  inaugural  address  was  susceptible  of 
the  most  varied  interpretations.  The  annual  mes-  ' 
sage  of  1829  indicated  opposition  to  protection;  j 
on  the  other  hand,  the  presidential  message  of  the  ^ 
next  year  not  only  asserted  the  full  power  of  Con-  j 
gress  to  levy  protective  duties  but  declared  the 
abandonment  of  protection  “neither  to  be  expect-/ 
ed  or  desired.”  Gradually  the  antiprotectionist| 
leaders  were  made  to  see  that  the  tariff  was  not  a\ 
subject  upon  which  the  President  felt  keenly,  and 
that  therefore  it  was  useless  to  look  to  him  forj 
effective  support.  / 

Even  the  adroit  efforts  which  were  made  to  get 
from  the  incoming  executive  expressions  that  could 
be  interpreted  as  endorsements  of  nullification  were 
successfully  fended  off.  For  some  months  the  Presi¬ 
dent  gave  no  outward  sign  of  his  disapproval.  With 
more  than  his  usual  deliberateness,  Jackson  studied 
the  situation,  awaiting  the  right  moment  to  speak 
out  with  the  maximum  of  effect. 


164  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


The  occasion  finally  came  on  April  13,  1830,  at 
a  banquet  held  in  Washington  in  celebration  of 
Jefferson’s  birthday.  The  Virginia  patron  of  de¬ 
mocracy  had  been  dead  four  years,  and  Jackson 
had  become,  more  truly  than  any  other  man,  his 
successor.  Jacksonian  democracy  was,  however, 
something  very  different  from  Jeffersonian,  and 
never  was  the  contrast  more  evident  than  on  this 
fateful  evening.  During  the  earlier  part  of  the 
festivities  a  series  of  prearranged  toasts,  accom¬ 
panied  by  short  speeches,  put  before  the  assem¬ 
blage  the  Jeffersonian  teachings  in  a  light  highly 
favorable  —  doubtless  imwarrantably  so  —  to  the 
ultra  state  rights  theory.  Then  followed  a  number 
of  volunteer  toasts.  The  President  was,  of  course, 
accorded  the  honor  of  proposing  the  first  —  and 
this  gave  Jackson  his  chance.  Rising  in  his  place 
and  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height,  he  raised 
his  right  hand,  looked  straight  at  Calhoun  and, 
amid  breathless  silence,  exclaimed  in  that  crisp, 
harsh  tone  that  had  so  often  been  heard  above 
the  crashing  of  many  rifles:  “Our  Union!  It  must 
be  preserved !  ” 

An  account  of  the  scene  which  is  given  by  Isaac 
Hill,  a  member  of  the  Kitchen  Cabinet  and  an  eye¬ 
witness,  is  interesting: 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


165 


A  proclamation  of  martial  law  in  South  Carolina  and 
an  order  to  arrest  Calhoun  where  he  sat  could  not  have 
come  with  more  blinding,  staggering  force.  All  hilarity 
ceased.  The  President,  without  adding  one  word  in 
the  way  of  speech,  lifted  up  his  glass  as  a  notice  that  the 
toast  was  to  be  quaffed  standing.  Calhoun  rose  with  the 
rest.  His  glass  so  trembled  in  his  hand  that  a  little  of 
the  amber  fluid  trickled  down  the  side.  Jackson  stood 
silent  and  impassive.  There  was  no  response  to  the 
toast.  Calhoun  waited  until  all  sat  down.  Then  he 
slowly  and  with  hesitating  accent  offered  the  second 
volunteer  toast:  “The  Union!  Next  to  Our  Liberty 
Most  Dear !  ”  Then,  after  a  minute’s  hesitation,  and  in 
a  way  that  left  doubt  as  to  whether  he  intended  it  for 
part  of  the  toast  or  for  the  preface  to  a  speech,  he  added: 
“May  we  all  remember  that  it  can  only  be  preserved  by 
respecting  the  rights  of  the  States  and  by  distributing 
equally  the  benefit  and  burden  of  the  Union.”  j 

The  nullifiers  had  carefully  planned  the  eve¬ 
ning’s  proceedings  with  a  purpose  to  strengthen 
their  cause  with  the  country.  They  had  not  reck¬ 
oned  on  the  President,  and  the  dash  of  cold  water 
which  he  had  administered  caused  them  more 
anguish  than  any  opposition  that  they  had  yet 
encountered.  The  banquet  broke  up  earlier  than 
had  been  expected,  and  the  diners  went  off  by  twos 
and  threes  in  eager  discussion  of  the  scene  that  they 
had  witnessed.  Some  were  livid  with  rage;  some 
shook  their  heads  in  fear  of  civil  war;  but  most 


166  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


rejoiced  in  the  splendid  exhibition  of  executive  dig- 
^nity  and  patriotic  fervor  which  the  President  had 
/given.  Subsequently  it  transpired  that  Jackson 
i  had  acted  on  no  mere  impulse  and  that  his  course 
had  been  carefully  planned  in  consultation  with 
Van  Buren  and  other  advisers. 

Throughout  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1830 
both  the  State  Rights  and  Union  parties  in  South 
Carolina  worked  feverishly  to  perfect  their  organi¬ 
zations.  The  issue  that  both  were  making  ready  to 
meet  was  nothing  less  than  the  election  of  a  con¬ 
vention  to  nullify  the  tariff  laws.  Those  uphold¬ 
ing  nullification  lost  no  opportunity  to  consolidate 
their  forces,  and  by  the  close  of  the  year  these 
were  clearly  in  the  majority,  although  the  union¬ 
ist  element  contained  many  of  the  ablest  and 
most  respected  men  in  the  State.  Calhoun  di¬ 
rected  the  nullifier  campaign,  though  he  did  not 
throw  off  all  disguises  until  the  summer  of  the 
following  year. 

Though  Jackson  made  no  further  public  declara¬ 
tions,  the  views  which  he  expressed  in  private  were 
usually  not  slow  to  reach  the  public  ear.  In  a 
letter  to  a  committee  of  the  Union  party  in  re¬ 
sponse  to  an  invitation  to  attend  a  Fourth  of  July 
dinner  the  President  intimated  that  force  might 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


167 


properly  be  employed  if  nullification  should  be  at¬ 
tempted.  And  to  a  South  Carolina  Congressman 
who  was  setting  off  on  a  trip  home  he  said:  “Tell  ) 
them  [the  nullifiers]  from  me  that  they  can  talk  and 
write  resolutions  and  print  threats  to  their  hearts’ 
content.  But  if  one  drop  of  blood  be  shed  there  in 
defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  I  will 
hang  the  first  man  of  them  I  can  get  my  hands  on 
to  the  first  tree  I  can  find.”  When  Hayne  heard  of  < 
this  threat  he  expressed  in  Benton’s  hearing  a 
doubt  as  to  whether  the  President  would  really 
hang  anybody.  “I  tell  you,  Hayne,”  the  Missou¬ 
rian  replied,  “when  Jackson  begins  to  talk  about 
hanging,  they  can  begin  to  look  for  the  ropes.” 

Meanwhile  actual  nullification  awaited  the  de¬ 
cision  of  the  Vice  President  to  surrender  himself 
completely  to  the  cause  and  to  become  its  avowed 
leader.  Calhoun  did  not  find  this  an  easy  decision 
to  make.  Above  all  things  he  wanted  to  be  Presi¬ 
dent.  He  was  not  the  author  of  nullification;  and 
although  he  did  not  fully  realize  until  too  late  how 
much  his  state  rights  leanings  would  cost  him  in 
the  North,  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  know  that  his 
political  fortunes  would  not  be  bettered  by  his  be¬ 
coming  involved  in  a  great  sectional  controversy. 
Circumstances  worked  together,  however,  to  force 


168  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

Calhoun  gradually  into  the  position  of  chief  prom¬ 
inence  in  the  dissenting  movement.  The  tide  of 
public  opinion  in  his  State  swept  him  along  with  it; 
the  breach  with  Jackson  severed  the  last  tie  with 
the  northern  and  western  democracy;  and  his  re¬ 
sentment  of  Van  Buren’s  rise  to  favor  prompted 
words  and  acts  which  completed  the  isolation  of 
the  South  Carolinian.  His  party’s  enthusiastic  ac¬ 
ceptance  of  Jackson  as  a  candidate  for  reelection 
in  1832  and  of  “Little  Van”  as  a  candidate  for 
the  vice  presidency  —  and,  by  all  tokens,  for  the 
presidency  four  years  later  —  was  the  last  straw, 
j  Broken  and  desperate,  Calhoun  sank  back  into  the 
'  role  of  an  extremist,  sectional  leader.  There  was 
no  need  of  further  concealment;  and  in  midsummer, 
1831,  he  issued  his  famous  Address  to  the  People  of 
South  Carolina,  and  this  restatement  of  the  Ex¬ 
position  of  1828  now  became  the  avowed  platform 
of  the  nullification  party.  The  Fort  Hill  Letter  of 
August  28, 1832,  addressed  to  Governor  Hamilton, 
was  a  simpler  and  clearer  presentation  of  the  same 
body  of  doctrine. 

Matters  were  at  last  brought  to  a  head  by  a  new 
piece  of  tariff  legislation  which  was  passed  in  1832 
not  to  appease  South  Carolina  but  to  take  advan¬ 
tage  of  a  comfortable  state  of  affairs  that  had  arisen 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


169 


in  the  national  treasury.  The  public  lands  were 
again  selling  well,  and  the  late  tariff  laws  were 
yielding  lavishly.  The  national  debt  was  dwin¬ 
dling  to  the  point  of  disappearance,  and  the  country 
had  more  money  than  it  could  use.  Jackson  there¬ 
fore  called  upon  Congress  to  revise  the  tariff  system 
so  as  to  reduce  the  revenue,  and  in  the  session  of 
1831-32  several  bills  to  that  end  were  brought  for¬ 
ward.  The  scale  of  duties  finally  embodied  in  the 
Act  of  July  14, 1832,  corrected  many  of  the  anoma¬ 
lies  of  the  Act  of  1828,  but  it  cut  off  some  mil¬ 
lions  of  revenue  without  making  any  substantial 
change  in  the  protective  system.  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina  voted  heavily  for  the  bill,  but 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  as  vigorously  opposed 
it;  and  the  nullifiers  refused  to  see  in  it  any  con¬ 
cession  to  the  tariff  principles  for  which  they  stood. 
‘T  no  longer  consider  the  question  one  of  free 
trade,  ”  wrote  Calhoun  when  the  passage  of  the  bill 
was  assured,  “but  of  consolidation.”  In  an  address 
to  their  constituents  the  South  Carolina  delegation 
in  Congress  declared  that  “protection  must  now  be 
regarded  as  the  settled  policy  of  the  country,” 
that  “all  hope  from  Congress  is  irrevocably  gone,” 
and  that  it  was  for  the  people  to  decide  “whether 
the  rights  and  liberties  which  you  received  as  a 


170  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


precious  inheritance  from  an  illustrious  ancestry 
shall  be  tamely  surrendered  without  a  struggle,  or 
transmitted  tmdiminished  to  your  posterity.” 

In  the  disaffected  State  events  now  moved 
rapidly.  The  elections  of  the  early  autumn  were 
carried  by  the  nullifiers,  and  the  new  Legisla¬ 
ture,  acting  on  the  recommendation  of  Gover¬ 
nor  Hamilton,  promptly  called  a  state  conven¬ 
tion  to  consider  whether  the  “federal  compact” 
had  been  violated  and  what  remedy  should  be 
adopted.  The  162  delegates  who  gathered  at  Co¬ 
lumbia  on  the  19th  of  November  were,  socially 
and  politically,  the  elite  of  the  State:  Hamiltons, 
Haynes,  Pinckneys,  Butlers  —  almost  all  of  the 
great  families  of  a  State  of  great  families  were 
represented.  From  the  outset  the  convention 
was  practically  of  one  mind;  and  an  ordinance  of 
nullification  drawn  up  by  a  committee  of  twenty- 
one  was  adopted  within  five  days  by  a  vote  of 
136  to  26. 

The  tariff  acts  of  1828  and  1832  were  declared 
“null,  void,  and  no  law,  nor  binding  upon  this 
State,  its  officers  or  citizens.”  None  of  the  duties 
in  question  were  to  be  permitted  to  be  collected  in 
the  State  after  February  1,  1833.  Appeals  to  the 
federal  courts  for  enforcement  of  the  invalidated 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


171 


acts  were  forbidden,  and  all  oflScebolders,  except 
members  of  the  Legislature,  were  required  to  take 
an  oath  to  uphold  the  ordinance.  Calhoun  had  lav 
boriously  argued  that  nullification  did  not  mean  dis¬ 
union.  But  his  contention  was  not  sustained  by  the  \ 
words  of  the  ordinance,  which  stated  unequivocally  I 
that  the  people  of  the  State  would  not  “  submit  to 
the  application  of  force  on  the  part  of  the  federal  ! 
Government  to  reduce  this  State  to  obedience.”  . 
Should  force  be  used,  the  ordinance  boldly  declared 
—  indeed,  should  any  action  contrary  to  the  will 
of  the  people  be  taken  to  execute  the  measures  i 
declared  void  —  such  efforts  would  be  regarded  \ 
as  “inconsistent  with  the  longer  continuance  of  j 
South  Carolina  in  the  Union,”  and  “the  people  of  "j 
this  State”  would  “thenceforth  hold  themselves  j 
absolved  from  all  further  obligation  to  maintain  or  / 
preserve  their  political  connection  with  the  people  / 
of  the  other  States,  and  will  forthwith  proceed  to/ 
organize  a  separate  Government,  and  to  do  allj 
other  acts  and  things  which  sovereign  and  inde-' 
pendent  States  may  of  right  do.” 

In  accordance  with  the  instructions  of  the  con¬ 
vention,  the  Legislature  forthwith  reassembled  to 
pass  the  measures  deemed  necessary  to  enforce 
the  ordinance.  A  replevin  act  provided  for  the 


172  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


recovery  of  goods  seized  or  detained  for  payment 
of  duty;  the  use  of  military  force,  including  volun¬ 
teers,  to  “repel  invasion”  was  authorized;  and 
provision  was  made  for  the  purchase  of  arms 
and  ammunition.  Throughout  the  State  a  martial 
tone  resoxmded.  Threats  of  secession  and  war 
were  heard  on  every  side.  Nightly  meetings  were 
held  and  demonstrations  were  organized.  Blue 
cockades  with  a  palmetto  button  in  the  center  be¬ 
came  the  most  popular  of  ornaments.  Medals 
were  struck  bearing  the  inscription:  “John  C. 
Calhoun,  First  President  of  the  Southern  Confeder¬ 
acy.”  The  Legislature,  reassembling  in  Decem¬ 
ber,  elected  Hayne  as  Governor  and  chose  Calhoun 
—  who  now  resigned  the  vice  presidency  —  to  take 
the  vacant  seat  in  the  Senate.  In  his  first  message 
to  the  Legislature  Webster’s  former  antagonist 
declared  his  purpose  to  carry  into  full  effect  the 
nullification  ordinance  and  the  legislation  supple¬ 
mentary  to  it,  and  expressed  confidence  that,  if  the 
sacred  soil  of  the  State  should  be  “polluted  by  the 
footsteps  of  an  invader,  ”  no  one  of  her  sons  would 
be  found  “raising  a  parricidal  arm  against  our 
common  mother.” 

Thus  the  proud  commonwealth  was  panoplied 
for  a  contest  of  wits,  and  perchance  of  arms,  with 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


173 


the  nation.  Could  it  hope  to  win?  South  Carolina 
had  a  case  which  had  been  forcibly  and  plausibly 
presented.  It  could  count  on  a  deep  reluctance 
of  men  in  every  part  of  the  country  to  see  the 
nation  fall  into  actual  domestic  combat.  There 
were,  however,  a  dozen  reasons  why  victory  could 
not  reasonably  be  looked  for.  One  would  have 
been  enough  —  the  presence  of  Andrew  Jackson  in 
the  White  House. 

Through  federal  oflScers  and  the  leaders  of  the 
Union  party  Jackson  kept  himself  fully  informed 
upon  the  situation,  and  six  weeks  before  the  nul¬ 
lification  convention  was  called  he  began  prepara¬ 
tions  to  meet  all  eventualities.  The  naval  authori¬ 
ties  at  Norfolk  were  directed  to  be  in  readiness  to 
dispatch  a  squadron  to  Charleston ;  the  command¬ 
ers  of  the  forts  in  Charleston  Harbor  were  ordered 
to  double  their  vigilance  and  to  defend  their  posts 
against  any  persons  whatsoever;  troops  were  or¬ 
dered  from  Fortress  Monroe;  and  General  Scott 
was  sent  to  take  full  command  and  to  strengthen 
the  defenses  as  he  found  necessary.  The  South 
Carolinians  were  to  be  allowed  to  talk,  and  even  to 
adopt  “  ordinances,  ”  to  their  hearts’  content.  But 
the  moment  they  stepped  across  the  line  of  dis¬ 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  United  States  they 


174  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


A  were  to  be  made  to  feel  the  weight  of  the  nation’s 
’  restraining  hand. 

'  “The  duty  of  the  Exeeutive  is  a  plain  one,” 
wrote  the  President  to  Joel  R.  Poinsett,  a  promi¬ 
nent  South  Carolina  unionist;  “the  laws  will  be 
A  executed  and  the  United  States  preserved  by  all  the 
\  constitutional  and  legal  means  he  is  invested  with.” 
When  the  situation  bore  its  most  serious  aspect 
Jackson  received  a  call  from  Sam  Dale,  who  had 
been  one  of  his  dispatch  bearers  at  the  Battle 
of  New  Orleans.  “General  Dale,”  exclaimed  the 
President  during  the  conversation,  “if  this  thing 
goes  on,  our  country  will  be  like  a  bag  of  meal  with 
both  ends  open.  Pick  it  up  in  the  middle  or  end¬ 
wise,  and  it  v,dll  run  out.  I  must  tie  the  bag  and 
save  the  country.”  “Dale,”  he  exclaimed  again 
later,  “  they  are  trying  me  here;  you  will  witness  it; 
but,  by  the  God  of  heaven,  I  will  uphold  the  laws.” 
“I  understood  him  to  be  referring  to  nullification 
again,”  related  Dale  in  his  account  of  the  inter¬ 
view,  “and  I  expressed  the  hope  that  things  would 
go  right.”  “They  shall  go  right,  sir,”  the  Presi¬ 
dent  fairly  shouted,  shattering  his  pipe  on  the 
table  by  way  of  further  emphasis. 

When  Jackson  heard  that  the  convention  at 
Columbia  had  taken  the  step  expected  of  it,  he 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


175 


made  the  following  entry  in  his  diary:  “South 
Carolina  has  passed  her  ordinance  of  nullification 
and  secession.  As  soon  as  it  can  be  had  in  authen¬ 
tic  form,  meet  it  with  a  proclamation.”  The  proc^  J 
lamation  was  issued  December  10,  1832.  Parton  { 
relates  that  the  President  wrote  the  first  draft  of 
this  proclamation  under  such  a  glow  of  feeling  that 
he  was  obliged  “to  scatter  the  written  pages  all 
over  the  table  to  let  them  dry,  ”  and  that  the  docu¬ 
ment  was  afterwards  revised  by  his  scholarly  Sec¬ 
retary  of  State,  Edward  Livingston.  With  J ackson  j 
supplying  the  ideas  and  spirit  and  Livingston  the  4 

f' 

literary  form,  the  result  was  the  ablest  and  most 
impressive  state  paper  of  the  period.  It  categori¬ 
cally  denied  the  right  of  a  State  either  to  annul  a 
federal  law  or  to  secede  from  the  Union.  It  ad¬ 
mitted  that  the  laws  complained  of  operated  un¬ 
equally  but  took  the  position  that  this  must  be 
true  of  ail  revenue  measures.  It  expressed  the 
inflexible  determination  of  the  Administration  to 
repress  and  punish  every  form  of  resistance  to  fed¬ 
eral  authority.  Deep  argument,  solemn  warning, 
and  fervent  entreaty  were  skillfully  combined.  But 
the  most  powerful  effect  was  likely  to  be  that 
produced  by  the  President’s  flaming  denial  —  set 
in  bold  type  in  the  contemporary  prints  —  of  the 


176  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Hayne-Calhoun  creed:  I  consider  the  power  to 
annul  a  law  of  the  United  States,  assumed  by 
one  State,  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  the 
Union,  contradicted  expressly  by  the  letter  of  the 
Constitution,  unauthorized  by  its  spirit,  incon¬ 
sistent  with  every  principle  on  which  it  was  found- 
^  ed,  and  destructive  of  the  great  object  for  which 
it  was  formed.” 

Throughout  the  North  this  vindication  of  na¬ 
tional  dignity  and  power  struck  a  responsive  chord, 
and  for  once  even  the  Adams  and  Clay  men  found 
themselves  in  hearty  agreement  with  the  President. 
Bostonians  gathered  in  Faneuil  Hall  and  New 
Yorkers  in  a  great  meeting  in  the  Park  to  shower 
encomiums  upon  the  proclamation  and  upon  its 
author.  The  nullifiers  did  not  at  once  recoil  from 
the  blow.  The  South  Carolina  Legislature  called 
upon  Governor  Hayne  officially  to  warn  “  the  good 
people  of  this  State  against  the  attempt  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  seduce  them  from 
their  allegiance”;  and  the  resulting  counterblast, 
in  the  form  of  a  proclamation  made  public  on  the 
20th  of  December,  was  as  vigorous  as  the  liveliest 
“fire-eater”  could  have  wished.  The  Governor  de¬ 
clared  that  the  State  would  maintain  its  sover¬ 
eignty  or  be  “buried  beneath  its  ruins.” 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


177 


The  date  of  the  expected  crisis  —  February  1, 
1833,  when  the  nullification  ordinance  was  to  take 
effect  —  was  now  near  at  hand,  and  on  both  sides 
preparations  were  pushed.  During  the  interval, 
however,  the  tide  turned  decidedly  against  the 
nullifiers.  A  call  for  a  general  convention  of  the 
States  “to  determine  and  consider  .  .  .  questions 
of  disputed  power”  served  only  to  draw  out  strong 
expressions  of  disapproval  of  the  South  Carolina 
program,  showing  that  it  could  not  expect  even 
moral  support  from  outside.  On  the  16th  of  Janu¬ 
ary  Jackson  asked  Congress  for  authority  to  alter 
or  abolish  certain  ports  of  entry,  to  use  force  to 
execute  the  revenue  laws,  and  to  try  in  the  federal 
courts  cases  that  might  arise  from  the  present 
emergency.  Five  days  later  a  bill  on  these  lines  — 
popularly  denominated  the  “Force  Bill”  —  was 
introduced;  and  while  many  men  who  had  no  sym¬ 
pathy  with  nullification  drew  back  from  a  plan  in¬ 
volving  the  coercion  of  a  State,  it  was  soon  settled 
that  some  sort  of  measure  for  strengthening  the 
President’s  hand  would  be  passed. 

Meanwhile  a  way  of  escape  from  the  whole  diflS- 
culty  was  unexpectedly  opened.  The  friends  of 
Van  Buren  began  to  fear  that  the  disagreement  of 
North  and  South  upon  the  tariff  question  would 


178  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


cost  their  favorite  the  united  support  of  the  party 
in  1836.  Accordingly  they  set  on  foot  a  movement 
in  Congress  to  bring  about  a  moderate  reduction  of 
the  prevailing  rates;  and  it  was  of  course  their  hope 
that  the  nullifiers  would  be  induced  to  recede  al¬ 
together  from  the  position  which  they  had  taken. 
Through  Verplanck  of  New  York,  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee  of  the  House  brought  in  a 
measure  reducing  the  duties,  within  two  years,  to 
about  half  the  existing  rates.  Jackson  approved 
the  plan,  although  personally  he  had  little  to  do 
with  it. 

But  though  the  Verplanck  Bill  could  not  muster 
sufficient  support  to  become  law,  it  revived  tariff 
discussion  on  promising  lines,  and  it  brought  nulli¬ 
fication  proceedings  to  a  halt  in  the  very  nick  of 
time.  Shortly  before  February  1, 1833,  the  leading 
nullifiers  came  together  in  Charleston  and  entered 
into  an  extralegal  agreement  to  postpone  the  en¬ 
forcement  of  the  nullification  ordinance  until  the 
outcome  of  the  new  tariff  debates  should  be  known. 
The  failure  of  the  Verplanck  measure,  however, 
left  matters  where  they  were,  and  civil  war  in  South 
Carolina  again  loomed  ominously. 

In  this  juncture  patriots  of  all  parties  turned  to 
the  one  man  whose  leadership  seemed  indispensable 


TARIFF  AND  NULLIFICATION 


179 


in  tariff  legislation — the  ‘  ‘  great  pacificator,”  Henry 
Clay,  who  after  two  years  in  private  life  had  just 
taken  his  seat  in  the  Senate.  Clay  was  no  friend 
of  Jackson  or  of  Van  Buren,  and  it  required  much 
sacrifice  of  personal  feeling  to  lend  his  services  to 
a  program  whose  political  benefits  would  almost 
certainly  accrue  to  his  rivals.  Finally,  however,  he 
yielded  and  on  the  12th  of  February  he  rose  in 
the  Senate  and  offered  a  compromise  measure 
proposing  that  on  all  articles  which  paid  more 
than  twenty  per  cent  the  amount  in  excess  of 
that  rate  should  be  reduced  by  stages  until  in 
1842  it  would  entirely  disappear. 

Stormy  debates  followed  on  both  the  Compro¬ 
mise  Tariff  and  the  Force  Bill,  but  before  the  ses¬ 
sion  closed  on  the  4th  of  March  both  were  on  the 
statute  book.  When,  therefore,  the  South  Caro¬ 
lina  convention,  in  accordance  with  an  earlier 
proclamation  of  Governor  Hamilton,  reassembled 
on  the  1 1th  of  March,  the  wind  had  been  taken  out  of 
the  nullifiers’  sails;  the  laws  which  they  had  “nulli¬ 
fied  ”  had  been  repealed,  and  there  was  nothing  for 
the  convention  to  do  but  to  rescind  the  late  ordi¬ 
nance  and  the  legislative  measures  supplementary 
to  it.  There  was  a  chance,  however,  for  one  final 
fling.  By  a  vote  of  132  to  19  the  convention  soberly 


180  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


adopted  an  ordinance  nullifying  the  Force  Bill  and 
calling  on  the  Legislature  to  pass  laws  to  prevent 
the  execution  of  that ,  measure  —  which,  indeed, 
nobody  was  now  proposing  to  execute. 

So  the  tempest  passed.  Both  sides  claimed  vic¬ 
tory,  and  with  some  show  of  reason.  So  far  as  was 
possible  without  an  actual  test  of  strength,  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Government  had  been 
vindicated  and  its  dignity  maintained;  the  consti¬ 
tutional  doctrines  of  Webster  acquired  a  new  sanc¬ 
tion;  the  fundamental  point  was  enforced  that  a 
law  —  that  every  law  —  enacted  by  Congress  must 
be  obeyed  until  repealed  or  until  set  aside  by  the 
courts  as  unconstitutional.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
nullifiers  had  brought  about  the  repeal  of  the  laws 
to  which  they  objected  and  had  been  largely  instru¬ 
mental  in  turning  the  tariff  policy  of  the  country 
for  some  decades  into  a  new  channel.  Moreover 
they  expressed  no  regret  for  their  acts  and  in  no 
degree  renounced  the  views  upon  which  those  acts 
had  been  based.  They  submitted  to  the  authority 
of  the  United  States,  but  on  terms  fixed  by  them¬ 
selves.  And,  what  is  more,  they  supplied  practi¬ 
cally  every  constitutional  and  political  argument 
to  be  used  by  their  sons  in  1860  to  justify  secession. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  WAR  ON  THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 

“Nothing  lacks  now  to  complete  the  love-feast,” 
wrote  Isaac  Hill  sardonically  to  Thomas  H.  Ben¬ 
ton  after  the  collapse  of  nullification,  “but  for 
Jackson  and  Webster  to  solemnize  the  coalition 
[in  support  of  the  Union]  with  a  few  mint-juleps! 
I  think  I  could  arrange  it,  if  assured  of  the  coopera¬ 
tion  of  yourself  and  Blair  on  our  side,  and  Jerry 
Mason  and  Nick  Biddle  on  theirs.  But  never  fear, 
my  friend.  This  mixing  of  oil  and  water  is  only 
the  temporary  shake-up  of  Nullification.  Wait  till 
Jackson  gets  at  the  Bank  again,  and  then  the 
scalping-knives  will  glisten  once  more.” 

The  South  Carolina  controversy  had  indeed 
brought  Jacksonians  and  anti- J acksonians  together. 
But  once  the  tension  was  relaxed,  there  began  the 
conflict  of  interests  which  the  New  Hampshire  edi¬ 
tor  had  predicted.  Men  fell  again  into  their  cus¬ 
tomary  political  relationships;  issues  that  for  the 

181 


182  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


moment  had  been  pushed  into  the  background  — 
internal  improvements,  public  land  policy,  dis¬ 
tribution  of  surplus  revenue,  and  above  all  the 
Bank  —  were  revived  in  full  vigor.  Now,  indeed, 
the  President  entered  upon  the  greatest  task  to 
which  he  had  yet  put  his  hand.  To  curb  nullifi¬ 
cation  was  a  worthy  achievement.  But,  after 
all.  Congress  and  an  essentially  united  nation  had 
stood  firmly  behind  the  Executive  at  every  stage  of 
that  performance.  To  destroy  the  United  States 
Bank  was  a  different  matter,  for  this  institution 
had  the  full  support  of  one  of  the  two  great  par¬ 
ties  in  which  the  people  of  the  country  were 
now  grouped;  Jackson’s  own  party  was  by  no 
means  a  unit  in  opposing  it;  and  the  prestige  and 
influence  of  the  Bank  were  such  as  to  enable  it 
to  make  a  powerful  fight  against  any  attempts  to 
annihilate  it. 

The  second  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  char¬ 
tered  in  1816  for  twenty  years,  with  a  capital  of 
thirty-five  million  dollars,  one-fifth  of  which  had 
been  subscribed  by  the  Government.  For  some 
time  it  was  not  notably  successful,  partly  because 
of  bad  management  but  mainly  because  of  the 
disturbance  of  business  which  the  panic  of  1819 
had  produced.  Furthermore,  its  power  over  local 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK,  PHILADELPHIA,  NOW  THE 

UNITED  ST  A  TES  CUSTOM  HOUSE 


ISii  IHI-:  ''H';.;'''  -UN'ra.'.W  JACi^OK 
jfifi;3'Aiciit  fcatl  bed'll  itcstscd  u'lc  thp  backirroi.'i  t' 

.  o 

iuwrnai  improveai.eiJts.  j'libbc  land  poIie>'. 
■trii’utio':i  c»i  .surplus  ruvorK.'  -.'id  .••(uyc  iUj  ; 

were  revived  In  lull  "n'iVr.  Now/ijjde, , 


:C  - 


tbe  P:-esideric  e.aterf4™i!:>or:  ^hv  fref’.t"'*!  t 

vijrii  he  Jiitd  yet  iiand.  To  -Tirb 

Cav.  li  .»j.  . 


ail,  HST)? 


ao  oui.iiyj-  unrien  natioa  ! , 

stooit  tij-tr'l':  tile  lixecative  at  eyerv  ;da.’ •■  , 

'  */ 

t]ts.i  r  .---  To  d  •st>'py  T  TTd’vr;  ~  j  .: 

'Ava  -m-A  A.VA^  avi:! 

■  '■■'  T:-;i  '''I  1  svho  .:,-i  of  e;i-’  b-'o  r. 

.  .  .  ,  V  .  .^nivmsfla  .  « 

'.'i  '.•■'.•ven  ’t!-.-  yp-t  r-.P  of  .th.‘  country 

r:f:  iv  y  ...v-kt-jur-’w  o-v/n  p.'.  ly  was  by  d«' 

_ ^ _ 

/tieii  n IB  iL*  arjJ 

,  ,  .  '  '  L’  b?  ■ 


O.n/,  cilJ-  . 

4 

,.grt  aypby.p  a'ly  jitterip'- 


■.ri;'.n}i-rt 

to  ■■  ij-diKt'  •_>  *  "ffjj’ 

The  tcet’Oi-rl  Bai'.L  of  thi  :  ‘liikid  St5f.vi;'Tv'a,s'  -yb  ■ 
tered  iv!  <816  for  tv  cuty  yea^s,  with  a  rv.;i:,;’  y 
thirty-five  milii:  ;;  ploHars,  one-fiftli  .  r  pvhl'O-,  ; 
been  suh  i;  ribed  by  t  .o  (iovei'mmmt.  Fc  - 

i 

time  il  w:»'i  not  notably  sui  cefsful..  nardv  b*  <  < 


of  .  bail  r  ('.na^eme.ii,  but  ;; 


y  b;''.  ;)i 


ilisturhkHce  o?"  buiiin^S.vi-'  .  ..• 


d' 


hiad  ’.  rodneed. 


iiarne  p 
>')vr- r  <>  « .1 


•'  I 


■  '>■.•*•  >.y  ■•  li;  ..  ■  /f 


bP'' 


Ajider5en~Ln.ab,  La  If.Y" 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


183 


banks  and  over  the  currency  system  made  it  un¬ 
popular  in  the  West  and  South,  and  certain  States 
sought  to  cripple  it  by  taxing  out  of  existence  the 
several  branches  which  the  board  of  directors 
voted  to  establish.  In  two  notable  decisions  — 
M’Culloch  vs.  Maryland  in  1819  and  Osborn  vs. 
United  States  Bank  in  1824  —  the  Supreme  Court 
saved  the  institution  by  denying  the  power  of  a 
State  to  impose  taxation  of  the  sort  and  by  as¬ 
serting  unequivocally  the  right  of  Congress  to 
enact  the  legislation  upon  which  the  Bank  rested. 
And  after  Nicholas  Biddle,  a  Philadelphia  lawyer- 
diplomat,  succeeded  Langdon  Cheves  as  president 
of  the  Bank  in  1823  an  era  of  great  prosperity 
set  in. 

The  forces  of  opposition  were  never  reconciled; 
indeed,  every  evidence  of  the  increasing  strength 
of  the  Bank  roused  them  to  fresh  hostility.  The 
verdict  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  support  of  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Act  of  1816  carried  convic¬ 
tion  to  few  people  who  were  not  already  convinced. 
The  restraints  which  the  Bank  imposed  upon  the 
dubious  operations  of  the  southern  and  western 
banks  were  vigorously  resented.  The  Bank  was 
regarded  as  a  great  financial  monopoly,  an  “octo¬ 
pus,”  and  Biddle  as  an  autocrat  bent  only  on 


184  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


dominating  the  entire  banking  and  currency  sys¬ 
tem  of  the  country. 

On  Jackson’s  attitude  toward  the  Bank  before 
he  became  President  we  have  little  direct  informa¬ 
tion.  But  it  is  sufficiently  clear  that  eventually 
he  came  to  share  the  hostile  views  of  his  Tennessee 
friends  and  neighbors.  In  1817  he  refused  to  sign 
a  memorial  “got  up  by  the  aristocracy  of  Nash¬ 
ville”  for  the  establishment  of  a  branch  in  that 
town.  When,  ten  years  later,  such  a  branch  was 
installed.  General  Thomas  Cadwalader  of  Phila¬ 
delphia,  agent  of  the  Bank,  visited  the  town 
to  supervise  the  arrangements  and  became  very 
friendly  with  the  “lord  of  the  Hermitage.”  But 
correspondence  of  succeeding  years,  though  filled 
with  insinuating  cordiality,  failed  to  bring  out  any 
expression  of  goodwill  toward  the  institution  such 
as  the  agent  manifestly  coveted. 

Jackson  seems  to  have  carried  to  Washington  in 
1829  a  deep  distrust  of  the  Bank,  and  he  was  dis¬ 
posed  to  speak  out  boldly  against  it  in  his  inaugural 
address.  But  he  was  persuaded  by  his  friends 
that  this  would  be  ill-advised,  and  he  therefore 
made  no  mention  of  the  subject.  Yet  he  made  no 
effort  to  conceal  his  attitude,  for  he  wrote  to  Biddle 
a  few  months  after  the  inauguration  that  he  did 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


185 


not  believe  that  Congress  had  power  to  charter  a 
bank  outside  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  that  he 
did  not  dislike  the  United  States  Bank  more  than 
other  banks,  but  that  ever  since  he  had  read  the 
history  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble  he  had  been  afraid 
of  banks.  After  this  confession  the  writer  hardly 
needed  to  confess  that  he  was  “no  economist,  no 
financier.” 

Most  of  the  oflScers  of  the  “mother  bank”  at 
Philadelphia  and  of  the  branches  were  anti- Jackson 
men,  and  Jackson’s  friends  put  the  idea  into  his 
mind  that  the  Bank  had  used  its  influence  against 
him  in  the  late  campaign.  Specific  charges  of  par- 
tizanship  were  brought  against  Jeremiah  Mason, 
president  of  the  branch  at  Portsmouth,  New 
Hampshire;  and  although  an  investigation  showed 
the  accusation  to  be  groundless,  Biddle’s  heated 
defense  of  the  branch  had  no  effect  save  to  rouse 
the  Jacksonians  to  a  firmer  determination  to  com¬ 
pass  the  downfall  of  the  Bank. 

Biddle  labored  manfully  to  stem  the  tide.  He 
tried  to  improve  his  personal  relations  with  the 
President,  and  he  even  allowed  Jackson  men  to  gain 
control  of  several  of  the  western  branches.  The 
effort,  however,  was  in  vain.  When  he  thought 
the  situation  right,  Biddle  brought  forward  a  plan 


186  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

for  a  new  charter  which  received  the  assent  of  most 
of  the  members  of  the  ofl5cial  Cabinet,  as  well  as 

I  _ 

that  of  some  of  the  “Kitchen”  group.  But  Jack- 
son  met  the  proposal  with  his  unshakable  constitu¬ 
tional  objections  and,  to  Biddle’s  deep  disappoint¬ 
ment,  advanced  in  his  first  annual  message  to  the 
formal,  public  assault.  The  Bank’s  charter,  he 
reminded  Congress,  would  expire  in  1836;  request 
for  a  new  charter  would  probably  soon  be  forth¬ 
coming;  the  matter  could  not  receive  too  early 
attention  from  the  legislative  branch.  “Both  the 
constitutionality  and  the  expediency  of  the  law 
creating  this  bank,”  declared  the  President,  “are 
well  questioned  by  a  large  portion  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  by  all  that  it  has 
failed  in  the  great  end  of  establishing  a  uniform 
and  sound  currency.”  The  first  part  of  the  state¬ 
ment  was  true,  but  the  second  was  distinctly  unfair. 
The  Bank,  to  be  sure,  had  not  established  “a  imi- 
form  and  sound”  currency.  But  it  had  accom¬ 
plished  much  toward  that  end  and  was  practically 
the  only  agency  that  was  wielding  any  influence  in 
that  direction.  The  truth  is  that  the  more  efficient 
the  Bank  proved  in  this  task  the  less  popular  it 
became  among  those  elements  of  the  people  from 
which  Jackson  mainly  drew  his  strength. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


187 


Nothing  came  of  the  President’s  admonition 
except  committee  reports  in  the  two  Houses,  both 
favorable  to  the  Bank;  in  fact,  the  Senate  report 
was  copied  almost  verbatim  from  a  statement  sup¬ 
plied  by  Biddle.  A  year  later  Jackson  returned 
to  the  subject,  this  time  with  an  alternative  plan 
for  a  national  bank  to  be  organized  as  a  branch 
of  the  Treasury  and  hence  to  have  “no  means  to 
operate  on  the  hopes,  fears,  or  interests  of  large 
masses  of  the  community.”  In  a  set  of  autograph 
notes  from  which  the  second  message  was  prepared 
the  existing  Bank  was  declared  not  only  uncon¬ 
stitutional  but  dangerous  to  liberty,  “because 
through  its  officers,  loans,  and  participation  in 
politics  it  could  build  up  or  pull  down  parties  or 
men,  because  it  created  a  monopoly  of  the  money 
power,  because  much  of  the  stock  was  owned  by 
foreigners,  because  it  would  always  support  him 
who  supported  it,  and  because  it  weakened  the 
state  and  strengthened  the  general  government.” 
Congress  paid  no  attention  to  either  criticisms  or 
recommendations,  and  the  supporters  of  the  Bank 
took  fresh  heart. 

When  Congress  again  met,  in  December,  1831,  a 
presidential  election  was  impending  and  everybody 
was  wondering  what  part  the  bank  question  would 


188  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


play.  Most  Democrats  were  of  the  opinion  that 
the  subject  should  be  kept  in  the  background. 
After  all,  the  present  bank  charter  had  more  than 
four  years  to  run,  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  reason 
for  injecting  so  thorny  an  issue  into  the  campaign. 
With  a  view  to  keeping  the  bank  authorities  quiet, 
two  members  of  the  reconstructed  Cabinet,  Liv¬ 
ingston  and  McLane,  entered  into  a  modus  vivendi 
with  Biddle  under  which  the  Administration  agreed 
not  to  push  the  issue  until  after  the  election.  In 
his  annual  report  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
McLane  actually  made  an  argument  for  recharter¬ 
ing  the  Bank;  and  in  his  message  of  the  6th  of 
December  the  President  said  that,  while  he  still 
held  “the  opinions  heretofore  expressed  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Bank  as  at  present  organized,”  he  would 
“leave  it  for  the  present  to  the  investigation  of  an 
enlightened  people  and  their  representatives .  ’  ’  He 
had  been  persuaded  that  his  own  plan  for  a  Bank, 
suggested  a  year  earlier,  was  not  feasible. 

Biddle  now  made  a  supreme  mistake.  Misled 
in  some  degree  unquestionably  by  the  optimistic 
McLane,  he  got  the  idea  that  Jackson  was  weaken¬ 
ing,  that  the  Democrats  were  afraid  to  take  a  stand 
on  the  subject  until  after  the  election,  and  that 
now  was  the  strategic  time  to  strike  for  a  new 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


189 


charter.  In  this  belief  he  was  further  encouraged 
by  Clay,  Webster,  and  other  leading  anti-Ad- 
ministration  men,  as  well  as  by  McDuffie,  a  Cal¬ 
houn  supporter  and  ehairman  of  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee  of  the  House.  There  was 
small  doubt  that  a  bill  for  a  new  charter  could  be 
carried  in  both  branches  of  Congress.  Jackson 
must  either  sign  it,  argued  Biddle’s  advisers,  or  run 
grave  risk  of  losing  Pennsylvania  and  other  com¬ 
mercial  States  whose  support  was  necessary  to  his 
election.  On  the  other  hand,  Biddle  was  repeatedly 
warned  that  an  act  for  a  new  charter  would  be 
vetoed.  He  chose  to  press  the  issue  and  on  January 
9,  1832,  the  formal  application  of  the  Bank  for  a 
renewal  of  its  charter  was  presented  to  Congress, 
and  within  a  few  weeks  bills  to  reeharter  were 
reported  in  both  Houses. 

Realizing  that  defeat  or  even  a  slender  victory 
in  Congress  would  be  fatal,  the  Bank  flooded 
Washington  with  lobbyists,  and  Biddle  himself 
appeared  upon  the  scene  to  lead  the  fight.  The 
measure  was  carried  by  safe  majorities  —  in  the 
Senate,  on  the  11th  of  June,  by  a  vote  of  28  to  20, 
and  in  the  House  on  the  3d  of  July,  by  a  vote  of 
107  to  86.  To  the  dismay  of  the  bank  forees, 
although  it  ought  not  to  have  been  to  their  surprise. 


190  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Jackson  was  as  good  as  his  word.  On  the  10th  of 
July  the  bill  was  vetoed.  The  veto  message  as 
transmitted  to  the  Senate  was  probably  written 
by  Taney,  but  the  ideas  were  Jackson’s  —  ideas 
which,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  finance  and  banking 
operations,  have  been  properly  characterized  as 
“in  the  main  beneath  contempt.”  The  message, 
however,  was  intended  as  a  campaign  document, 
and  as  such  it  showed  great  ingenuity.  It  attacked 
the  Bank  as  a  monopoly,  a  “hydra  of  corruption,  ” 
and  an  instrumentality  of  federal  encroachment  on 
the  rights  of  the  States,  and  in  a  score  of  ways 
appealed  to  the  popular  distrust  of  capitalistic 
institutions.  The  message  acquired  importance, 
too,  from  the  President’s  extraordinary  claim  to 
the  right  of  judging  both  the  constitutionality  and 
the  expediency  of  proposed  legislation,  independ¬ 
ently  of  Congress  and  the  Courts.  • 

The  veto  plunged  the  Senate  into  days  of  acrid 
debate.  Clay  pronounced  Jackson’s  construction 
of  the  veto  power  “irreconcilable  with  the  genius 
of  representative  government.  ’  ’  W ebster  declared 
that  responsibilitj^  for  the  ruin  of  the  Bank  and  for 
the  disasters  that  might  follow  would  have  to  be 
borne  by  the  President  alone.  Benton  and  other 
prominent  members,  however,  painted  Jackson  as 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


191 


the  savior  of  his  country;  and  the  second  vote 
of  22  to  19  yielded  a  narrower  majority  for  the 
bill  than  the  first  had  done.  Thus  the  measure 
perished. 

The  bank  men  received  the  veto  with  equanim¬ 
ity.  They  professed  to  believe  that  the  balderdash 
in  which  the  message  abounded  would  make  con¬ 
verts  for  their  side;  they  even  printed  thirty 
thousand  copies  of  the  document  for  circulation. 
Events,  however,  did  not  sustain  their  optimism. 
In  the  ensuing  campaign  the  Bank  became,  by  its 
own  choice,  the  leading  issue.  The  National 
Republicans,  whose  nominee  was  Clay,  defended 
the  institution  and  attacked  the  veto;  the  Jack- 
sonians  reiterated  on  the  stump  every  charge  and 
argument  that  their  leader  had  taught  them.  The 
verdict  was  decisive.  Jackson  received  219  and 
Clay  49  electoral  votes. 

The  President  was  unquestionably  right  in  inter¬ 
preting  his  triumph  as  an  endorsement  of  the  veto, 
and  he  naturally  felt  that  the  question  was  settled. 
The  oflBcers  and  friends  of  the  Bank  still  hoped, 
however,  to  snatch  victory  from  defeat.  They 
had  no  expectation  of  converting  Jackson  or  of 
carrying  a  charter  measure  at  an  early  date.  But 
they  foresaw  that  to  wind  up  the  business  of  the 


192  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Bank  in  1836  it  would  be  necessary  to  call  in  loans 
and  to  withdraw  a  vast  amount  of  currency  from 
circulation,  with  the  result  of  a  general  disturb¬ 
ance,  if  not  a  severe  crippling,  of  business.  This, 
they  thought,  would  bring  about  an  eleventh-hour 
measure  giving  the  Bank  a  new  lease  of  life. 

Jackson,  too,  realized  that  a  sudden  termination 
of  the  activities  of  the  Bank  would  derange  busi¬ 
ness  and  produce  distress,  and  that  under  these 
circumstances  a  charter  might  be  wrung  from 
Congress  in  spite  of  a  veto.  But  he  had  no  inten¬ 
tion  of  allowing  matters  to  come  to  such  a  pass. 
His  plan  was  rather  to  cut  off  by  degrees  the  activi¬ 
ties  of  the  Bank,  until  at  last  they  could  be  sus¬ 
pended  altogether  without  a  shock.  The  most 
obvious  means  of  doing  this  was  to  withdraw  the 
heavy  deposits  made  by  the  Government;  and  to 
this  course  the  President  fully  committed  himself 
as  soon  as  the  results  of  the  election  were  known. 
He  was  impelled,  further,  by  the  conviction  — 
notwithstanding  unimpeachable  evidence  to  the 
contrary  —  that  the  Bank  was  insolvent,  and  by 
his  indignation  at  the  refusal  of  Biddle  and  his 
associates  to  accept  the  electoral  verdict  as  final. 
“Biddle  shan’t  have  the  public  money  to  break 
down  the  public  administration  with.  It’s  settled. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


193 


My  mind’s  made  up.”  So  the  President  declared 
to  Blair  early  in  1833.  And  no  one  could  have 
any  reasonable  doubt  that  decisive  action  would 
follow  threat. 

It  was  not,  however,  all  plain  sailing.  Under 
the  terms  of  the  charter  of  1816  public  funds  were 
to  be  deposited  in  the  Bank  and  its  branches  unless 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  direct  that 
they  be  placed  elsewhere;  and  such  deposits  else¬ 
where,  together  with  actual  withdrawals,  were  to 
be  reported  to  Congress,  with  reasons  for  such 
action.  McLane,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
was  friendly  toward  the  Bank  and  could  not  be 
expected  to  give  the  necessary  orders  for  removal. 
This  meant  that  the  first  step  was  to  get  a  new  head 
for  the  Treasury.  But  McLane  was  too  influential 
a  man  to  be  summarily  dismissed.  Hence  it  was 
arranged  that  Livingston  should  become  Minister 
to  France  and  that  McLane  should  succeed  him  as 
Secretary  of  State. 

The  choice  of  the  new  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
would  have  been  a  clever  stroke  if  things  had 
worked  out  as  Jackson  expected.  The  appointee 
was  William  J.  Duane,  son  of  the  editor  of  the 
Aurora,  which  had  long  been  the  most  popular  and 
influential  newspaper  in  Pennsylvania.  This  State 


13 


194  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


was  the  seat  of  the  “mother  bank”  and,  although 
a  Jackson  stronghold,  a  cordial  supporter  of  the 
proscribed  institution;  so  that  it  was  well  worth 
while  to  forestall  criticism  in  that  quarter,  so  far 
as  might  be,  by  having  the  order  for  removal  issued 
by  a  Pennsylvanian.  Duane,  however,  accepted 
the  post  rather  because  he  coveted  office  than 
because  he  supported  the  policy  of  removal,  and 
when  the  test  came  Jackson  found  to  his  chagrin 
that  he  still  had  a  Secretary  who  would  not  take 
the  desired  action.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but 
procure  another;  and  this  time  he  made  no  mistake. 
Duane,  weakly  protesting,  was  dismissed,  and 
Roger  B.  Taney,  the  Attorney-General,  was  ap¬ 
pointed  in  his  stead.  “I  am  fully  prepared  to  go 
with  you  firmly  through  this  business,”  Jackson 
was  assured  by  the  new  Secretary,  “and  to  meet  all 
its  consequences.” 

The  way  was  now  clear,  and  an  order  was  issued 
requiring  all  treasury  receipts  after  October  1, 
1833,  to  be  deposited  in  the  Girard  Bank  of  Phila¬ 
delphia  and  twenty-two  other  designated  state 
banks.  Deposits  in  the  United  States  Bank  and 
its  branches  were  not  immediately  “removed”; 
they  were  left,  rather,  to  be  withdrawn  as  the 
money  was  actually  needed.  Nevertheless  there 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


195 


was  considerable  disturbance  of  business,  and  dep¬ 
utation  after  deputation  came  to  the  White  House 
to  ask  that  Taney’s  order  be  rescinded.  Jackson, 
however,  was  sure  that  most  of  the  trouble  was 
caused  by  Biddle  and  his  associates,  and  to  all  these 
appeals  he  remained  absolutely  deaf.  After  a  time 
he  refused  so  much  as  to  see  the  petitioners.  In 
his  message  of  the  3d  of  December  he  assumed 
full  responsibility  for  the  removals,  defending  his 
course  mainly  on  the  ground  that  the  Bank  had 
been  “actively  engaged  in  attempting  to  influence 
the  elections  of  the  public  officers  by  means  of 
its  money.” 

From  this  point  the  question  became  entirely 
one  of  politics.  The  Bank  itself  was  doomed.  On 
the  one  side,  the  National  Republicans  united  in 
the  position  that  the  Administration  had  been 
entirely  in  the  wrong,  and  that  the  welfare  of  the 
country  demanded  a  great  fiscal  institution  of 
the  character  of  the  Bank.  On  the  other  side,  the 
Democrats,  deriving,  indeed,  a  new  degree  of  unity 
from  the  controversy  on  this  issue,  upheld  the 
President’s  every  word  and  act.  “You  may  con¬ 
tinue,  ”  said  Benton  to  his  fellow  partizans  in  the 
Senate,  “to  be  for  a  bank  and  for  Jackson,  but  you 
cannot  be  for  this  Bank  and  Jackson.”  Firmly 


196  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


allied  with  the  Bank  interests,  the  National  Repub¬ 
licans  resolved  to  bring  all  possible  discomfiture 
upon  the  Administration. 

The  House  of  Representatives  was  controlled  by 
the  Democrats,  and  little  could  be  accomplished 
there.  But  the  Senate  contained  not  only  the  three 
ablest  anti-Jacksonians  of  the  day  —  Clay,  Web¬ 
ster,  Calhoun  —  but  an  absolute  majority  of  anti- 
Administration  men;  and  there  the  attack  was 
launched.  On  December  26,  1833,  Clay  intro¬ 
duced  two  resolutions  declaring  that  in  the  removal 
of  the  deposits  the  President  had  “assumed  upon 
himself  authority  and  power  not  conferred  by  the 
Constitution  and  laws  but  in  derogation  of  both,  ” 
and  pronouncing  Taney’s  statement  of  reasons 
“unsatisfactory  and  insufficient.”  After  a  stormy 
debate,  both  resolutions  in  slightly  amended  form 
were  carried  by  substantial  majorities. 

Jackson  was  not  in  the  habit  of  meekly  swallow¬ 
ing  censure,  and  on  the  15th  of  April  he  sent  to  the 
Senate  a  formal  protest,  characterizing  the  action 
of  the  body  as  “unauthorized  by  the  Constitution, 
contrary  to  its  spirit  and  to  several  of  its  express 
provisions,”  and  “subversive  of  that  distribution 
of  the  powers  of  government  which  it  has  ordained 
and  established.”  Aside  from  a  general  defense  of 


THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


197 


his  course,  the  chief  point  that  the  President  made 
was  that  the  Constitution  provided  a  procedure  in 
cases  of  this  kind,  namely  impeachment,  which 
alone  could  be  properly  resorted  to  if  the  legislative 
branch  desired  to  bring  charges  against  the  Execu¬ 
tive.  The  Senate  was  asked  respectfully  to  spread 
the  protest  on  its  records.  This,  however,  it  re¬ 
fused  to  do.  On  the  contrary,  it  voted  that  the 
right  of  protest  could  not  be  recognized;  and  it 
found  additional  satisfaction  in  negativing  an 
unusual  number  of  the  President’s  nominations. 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  his  second  Ad¬ 
ministration  Jackson  maintained  his  hold  upon  the 
country  and  kept  firm  control  in  the  lower  branch 
of  Congress.  Until  very  near  the  end,  the  Senate, 
however,  continued  hostile.  During  the  debate  on 
the  protest  Benton  served  notice  that  he  would 
introduce,  at  each  succeeding  session,  a  motion  to 
expunge  the  resolution  of  censure.  Such  a  motion 
was  made  in  1835,  and  again  in  1836,  without 
result.  But  at  last,  in  January,  1837,  after  a  de¬ 
bate  lasting  thirteen  hours,  the  Senate  adopted,  by 
a  vote  of  24  to  19,  a  resolution  meeting  the  Jack¬ 
sonian  demand. 

The  manuscript  journal  of  the  session  of  1833-1834  was 
brought  into  the  Senate,  and  the  secretary,  in  obedience 


198  THE  REIGN  OP  ANDREW  JACKSON 


to  the  resolution,  drew  black  lines  around  the  resolution 
of  censure,  and  wrote  across  the  face  thereof,  “in  strong 
letters,”  the  words:  “Expunged  by  order  of  the  Senate, 
this  sixteenth  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1837.”  Many  members  withdrew  rather  than  witness 
the  proceeding;  but  a  crowded  gallery  looked  on,  while 
Benton  strengthened  his  supporters  by  providing  “an 
ample  supply  of  cold  hams,  turkeys,  rounds  of  beef, 
pickles,  wines,  and  cups  of  hot  coffee”  in  a  near-by 
committee-room.  Jackson  gave  a  dinner  to  the  “ex- 
pungers”  and  their  wives,  and  placed  Benton  at  the 
head  of  the  table.  That  the  action  of  the  Senate  was  un¬ 
constitutional  interested  no  one  save  the  lawyers,  for 
the  Bank  was  dead.  Jackson  was  vindicated,  and  the 
people  were  enthroned.  ^ 

The  struggle  thus  brought  to  a  triumphant  close 
was  one  of  the  severest  in  American  political  his¬ 
tory.  In  1836  the  Bank  obtained  a  charter  from 
Pennsylvania,  under  the  name  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  of  Pennsylvania,  and  all  connection 
between  it  and  the  Federal  Government  ceased. 
The  institution  and  the  controversies  centering 
about  it  left,  however,  a  deep  impress  upon  the 
financial  and  political  history  of  our  fifth  and  sixth 
decades.  It  was  the  bank  issue,  more  than  any¬ 
thing  else,  that  consolidated  the  new  political 
parties  of  the  period.  It  was  that  issue  that 

^  MacDonald,  Jacksonian  Democracy^  p.  239. 


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w-v.  v-’-"-* 


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y*  ^  ’>■’  1'  . . 


HENRY  CLAY 


Engraving  by  J.  B.  Longacre,  after  a  painting  by  W.  J.  Hubard, 
exhibited  in  the  National  Academy  of  Design,  1832.  In  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery  of  Distinguished  Americans. 


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nr,  =■ 

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THE  UNITED  STATES  BANK 


199 


proved  most  conclusively  the  hold  of  Jackson  upon 
public  opinion.  And  it  was  the  destruction  of  the 
Bank  that  capped  the  mid-century  reaction  against 
the  rampant  nationalism  of  the  decade  succeeding 
the  War  of  1812.  The  Bank  itself  had  been  well 
managed,  sound,  and  of  great  service  to  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  it  had  also  showed  strong  monopolistic 
tendencies,  and  as  a  powerful  capitalistic  organiza¬ 
tion  it  ran  counter  to  the  principles  and  prejudices 
which  formed  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  Jack¬ 
sonian  democracy. 

For  more  than  a  decade  after  the  Bank  was 
destroyed  the  United  States  had  a  troubled  finan¬ 
cial  history.  The  payment  of  the  last  dollar  of  the 
national  debt  in  1834  gave  point  to  a  suggestion 
which  Clay  had  repeatedly  offered  that,  as  a 
means  of  avoiding  an  embarrassing  surplus,  the 
proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public  lands  should  be  dis¬ 
tributed  according  to  population  among  the  States. 
One  bill  on  this  subject  was  killed  by  a  veto  in 
1832,  but  another  was  finally  approved  in  1836. 
Before  distribution  could  be  carried  far,  however, 
the  country  was  overtaken  by  the  panic  of  1837; 
and  never  again  was  there  a  surplus  to  distribute. 
For  seven  years  the  funds  of  the  Government  con¬ 
tinued  to  be  kept  in  state  banks,  until,  in  1840, 


200  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


President  Van  Buren  prevailed  upon  Congress  to 
pass  a  measure  setting  up  an  independent  treasury 
system,  thereby  realizing  the  ultimate  purpose  of 
the  Jacksonians  to  divorce  the  Government  from 
banks  of  every  sort.  When  the  Whigs  came  into 
power  in  1841,  they  promptly  abolished  the  in¬ 
dependent  Treasury  with  a  view  to  resurrecting 
the  United  States  Bank.  Tyler’s  vetoes,  however, 
frustrated  their  designs,  and  it  remained  for  the 
Democrats  in  1846  to  revive  the  independent 
Treasury  and  to  organize  it  substantially  as  it 
operates  today. 


* 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 

It  was  not  by  chance  that  the  Jacksonian  period 
made  large  contribution  to  the  working  out  of  the 
ultimate  relations  of  the  red  man  with  his  white 
rival  and  conqueror.  Jackson  was  himself  an  old 
frontier  soldier,  who  never  doubted  that  it  was 
part  of  the  natural  order  of  things  that  conflict 
between  the  two  peoples  should  go  on  until  the 
weaker  was  dispossessed  or  exterminated.  The 
era  was  one  in  which  the  West  guided  public  policy; 
and  it  was  the  West  that  was  chiefly  interested 
in  further  circumscribing  Indian  lands,  trade, 
and  influence.  In  Jackson’s  day,  too,  the  people 
ruled;  and  it  was  the  adventurous,  pushing,  land- 
hungry  common  folk  who  decreed  that  the  red  man 
had  lingered  long  enough  in  the  Middle  West  and 
must  now  move  on. 

The  pressure  of  the  white  population  upon  the 

Indian  lands  was  felt  both  in  the  Northwest  and  in 

201 


202  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


the  Southwest;  but  the  pressure  was  unevenly 
applied  in  the  two  sections.  North  of  the  Ohio 
there  was  simply  one  great  glacier-like  advance  of 
the  white  settlers,  driving  westward  before  it 
practically  all  of  the  natives  who  did  not  perish  in 
the  successive  attempts  to  roll  back  the  wave  of 
conquest  upon  the  Alleghanies.  The  redskins  were 
pushed  from  Ohio  into  Indiana,  from  Indiana  into 
Illinois,  from  Illinois  and  Wisconsin  into  Iowa  and 
Minnesota;  the  few  tribal  fragments  which  by 
treaty  arrangement  remained  behind  formed  only 
insignificant  “islands”  in  the  midst  of  the  fast¬ 
growing  flood  of  white  population. 

In  the  South  the  great  streams  of  migration  were 
those  that  flowed  down  the  Ohio,  filling  the  back 
lands  on  each  side,  and  thence  down  the  Mississippi 
to  its  mouth.  Hence,  instead  of  pressing  the  na¬ 
tives  steadily  backward  from  a  single  direction,  as 
in  the  North,  the  whites  hemmed  them  in  on  east, 
west,  and  north ;  while  to  the  southward  the  Gulf 
presented  a  relentless  barrier.  Powerful  and  pop¬ 
ulous  tribes  were  left  high  and  dry  in  Georgia, 
Tennessee,  and  Alabama  —  peoples  who  in  their 
day  of  necessity  could  hope  to  find  new  homes  only 
by  long  migrations  past  the  settled  river  districts 
that  lay  upon  their  western  frontiers. 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


203 


Of  these  encircled  tribes,  four  were  of  chief  im¬ 
portance  :  the  Creeks,  the  Cherokees,  the  Choctaws, 
and  the  Chickasaws.  In  1825  the  Creeks  num¬ 
bered  twenty  thousand,  and  held  between  five  and 
six  million  acres  of  land  in  western  Georgia  and 
eastern  Alabama.  The  Cherokees  numbered  about 
nine  thousand  and  had  even  greater  areas,  mainly 
in  northwestern  Georgia,  but  to  some  extent  also 
in  northeastern  Alabama  and  southeastern  Ten¬ 
nessee.  The  Choctaws,  numbering  twenty-one 
thousand,  and  the  Chickasaws,  numbering  thirty- 
six  hundred,  together  held  upwards  of  sixteen 
million  acres  in  Mississippi  —  approximately  the 
northern  half  of  the  State  —  and  a  million  and  a 
quarter  acres  in  western  Alabama.  The  four 
peoples  thus  numbered  fifty-three  thousand  souls, 
and  held  ancestral  lands  aggregating  over  thirty- 
three  million  acres,  or  nearly  the  combined  area  of 
Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey. 

Furthermore,  they  were  no  longer  savages.  The 
Creeks  were  the  lowest  in  civilization;  but  even 
they  had  become  more  settled  and  less  warlike 
since  their  chastisement  by  Jackson  in  1814.  The 
Choctaws  and  Chickasaws  lived  in  frame  houses, 
cultivated  large  stretches  of  land,  operated  work¬ 
shops  and  mills,  maintained  crude  but  orderly 


204  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


governments,  and  were  gradually  accepting  Chris¬ 
tianity.  Most  advanced  of  all  were  the  Chero- 
kees.  As  one  writer  has  described  them,  they 
“had  horses  and  cattle,  goats,  sheep,  and  swine. 
They  raised  maize,  cotton,  tobacco,  wheat,  oats, 
and  potatoes,  and  traded  with  their  products  to 
New  Orleans.  They  had  gardens,  and  apple  and 
peach  orchards.  They  had  built  roads,  and  they 
kept  inns  for  travelers.  They  manufactured  cot¬ 
ton  and  wool.  .  .  .  One  of  their  number  had  in¬ 
vented  an  alphabet  for  their  language.  They  had 
a  civil  government,  imitated  from  that  of  the 
United  States.”  Under  these  improved  conditions, 
all  of  the  tribes  were  growing  in  numbers  and  ac¬ 
quiring  vested  rights  which  it  would  be  increas¬ 
ingly  difficult  to  deny  or  to  disregard. 

A  good  while  before  Jackson  entered  the  Wffiite 
House  the  future  of  these  large,  settled,  and  pros¬ 
perous  groups  of  red  men  began  to  trouble  the 
people  of  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  other  Southern 
States.  The  Indians  made  but  little  use  of  the 
major  part  of  their  land;  vast  tracts  lay  un¬ 
trodden  save  by  himters.  Naturally,  as  the  white 
population  grew  and  the  lands  open  for  settlement 
became  scarcer  and  poorer,  the  rich  tribal  holdings 
were  looked  upon  with  covetous  eyes.  In  the 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


205 


decade  following  the  War  of  1812,  when  cotton 
cultivation  was  spreading  rapidly  over  the  south¬ 
ern  interior,  the  demand  that  they  be  thrown 
open  for  occupation  to  white  settlers  became 
almost  irresistible. 

Three  things,  obviously,  could  happen.  The 
tribes  could  be  allowed  to  retain  permanently  their 
great  domains,  while  the  white  population  flowed 
in  around  them;  or  the  lands  could  be  opened  to 
the  whites  under  terms  looking  to  a  peaceful  inter¬ 
mingling  of  the  two  peoples;  or  the  tribes  could 
be  induced  or  compelled  to  move  en  masse  to  new 
homes  beyond  the  Mississippi.  The  third  plan 
was  the  only  one  ever  considered  by  most  people  to 
be  feasible,  although  it  offered  great  difficulties 
and  was  carried  out  only  after  many  delays. 

The  State  which  felt  the  situation  most  keenly 
was  Georgia,  partly  because  there  an  older  and 
denser  population  pressed  more  eagerly  for  new 
lands,  partly  —  it  must  be  admitted  —  because 
lands  obtained  by  cession  were,  under  the  practice 
of  that  State,  distributed  among  the  people  by 
lottery.  The  first  move  in  this  direction  was  to 
dispossess  the  Creeks.  As  far  back  as  1802,  when 
Georgia  made  her  final  cession  of  western  lands  to 
the  United  States,  the  latter  agreed  to  extinguish 


206  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

the  Indian  title  to  lands  within  the  State  whenever 
it  could  be  done  “peaceably  and  on  reasonable 
terms.”  This  pledge  the  Georgians  never  allowed 
the  federal  authorities  to  forget.  After  1815  several 
large  tracts  were  liberated.  But  by  that  date  the 
State  wanted  unbroken  jurisdiction  over  all  of 
the  territory  within  her  limits,  and  her  complaints 
of  laxness  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government 
in  bringing  this  about  became  no  less  frequent 
than  vigorous. 

Near  the  close  of  his  Administration  President 
Monroe  sent  two  commissioners  to  procure  a 
general  cession ;  and  at  Indian  Spring  a  treaty  was 
concluded  in  which  the  Creeks  ceded  practically 
all  of  their  lands  between  the  Flint  and  the  Chat¬ 
tahoochee  rivers.  The  Senate  ratified  the  treaty, 
and  the  Georgians  were  elated.  But  investigation 
showed  that  the  Creeks  who  stood  behind  the 
agreement  represented  only  an  insignificant  frac¬ 
tion  of  the  nation,  and  President  Adams  refused  to 
allow  Troup,  the  irate  Georgian  Governor,  to  pro¬ 
ceed  with  the  intended  occupation  until  further 
negotiations  should  have  taken  place.  Stormy  ex¬ 
changes  of  views  followed,  in  the  course  of  which 
the  Governor  more  than  once  reminded  Adams  that 
Georgia  was  “sovereign  on  her  own  soil.”  But  in 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


207 


1826  and  1827  treaties  were  obtained  finally  ex¬ 
tinguishing  Creek  titles  in  the  State.  Land  west 
of  the  Mississippi  was  promised  to  all  Creeks  who 
would  go  there. 

The  problem  of  the  Cherokees  was  more  diflScult. 
By  a  series  of  treaties  beginning  in  1785  the  United 
States  had  recognized  this  people  as  a  nation,  capa¬ 
ble  of  making  peace  and  war,  of  owning  the  lands 
within  its  boundaries,  and  of  governing  and  punish¬ 
ing  its  own  citizens  by  its  own  laws.  At  the  close 
of  Jefferson’s  second  Administration  the  tribe  seri¬ 
ously  considered  moving  west  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  shortly  after  the  War  of  1812  most  of  the 
northern  members  resident  in  Tennessee  took  the 
long-deferred  step.  The  refusal  of  the  Georgia 
members  to  go  with  the  Tennesseeans  disappointed 
the  land-hungry  whites,  and  from  that  time  the 
authorities  of  the  State  labored  incessantly  both  to 
break  down  the  notion  that  the  Cherokees  were 
a  “nation”  to  be  dealt  with  through  diplomatic 
channels,  and  to  extend  over  them,  in  effect,  the 
full  sovereignty  of  the  State.  In  December,  1828, 
the  Legislature  took  the  bold  step  of  enacting  that 
all  white  persons  in  the  Cherokee  territory  should 
be  subject  to  the  laws  of  Georgia;  that  after  June 
1, 1830,  all  Indians  resident  in  this  territory  should 


208  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


be  subject  to  such  laws  as  might  be  prescribed  for 
them  by  the  State;  and  that  after  this  date  all  laws 
made  by  the  Cherokee  Government  should  be  null 
and  void. 

When  Jackson  became  President  he  found  on  his 
desk  a  vigorous  protest  against  this  drastic  piece  of 
legislation.  But  appeal  to  him  was  useless.  He 
was  on  record  as  believing,  in  common  with  most 
southwesterners,  that  Georgia  had  a  rightful  juris¬ 
diction  over  her  Indian  lands;  and  his  Secretary 
of  W^ar,  Eaton,  was  instructed  to  say  to  the  Chero¬ 
kee  representatives  that  their  people  would  be  ex¬ 
pected  either  to  yield  to  Georgia’s  authority  or  to 
temove  beyond  the  Mississippi.  In  his  first  annual 
message,  on  December  8,  1829,  the  President  set 
forth  the  principles  that  guided  him  from  first  to 
last  in  dealing  with  the  Indian  problem.  It  would 
be  greatly  to  the  interest  of  the  Indians  themselves, 
he  said,  to  remove  to  the  ample  lands  that  would  be 
set  apart  for  them  permanently  in  the  West,  where 
each  tribe  could  have  its  own  home  and  its  own 
government,  subject  to  no  control  by  the  United 
States  except  for  the  maintenance  of  peace  on  the 
-  frontier  and  among  the  tribes.  Forcible  removal 
was  not  to  be  contemplated;  that  would  be  cruel 
and  unjust.  But  every  effort  was  to  be  made  to 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS  209 

bring  about  a  voluntary  migration.  One  thing  > 
was  to  be  clearly  understood;  any  tribe  or  group 
that  chose  to  remain  in  Georgia  must  submit  to 
the  laws  of  the  State  and  yield  its  claim  to  all  land 
which  had  not  been  improved.  The  President  w^^ 
not  indifferent  to  the  well-being  of  the  red  men; 
but  he  refused  to  recognize  the  Cherokees  as  a 
“nation”  having  “rights”  as  against  either  Geor¬ 
gia  or  the  United  States.  A  few  weeks  after  the 
message  was  received  Congress  passed  a  bill  creat¬ 
ing  an  Indian  reservation  beyond  the  Mississippi 
and  appropriating  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
to  aid  in  the  removal  of  such  Indians  as  should 
choose  to  accept  the  offer  of  the  Government. 

The  outlook  for  the  Cherokees  was  now  dark. 
Both  the  executive  and  legislative  branches  of  the 
Federal  Government  were  committed  to  a  policy 
which  offered  only  the  alternatives  of  removal  or 
subjection;  and,  thus  encouraged,  the  Georgia 
Legislature  voted  to  proceed  with  the  extension  of 
the  full  authority  of  the  State  over  both  the  Chero¬ 
kees  and  the  Creeks  after  June  1, 1830.  To  make 
matters  worse,  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the  north¬ 
eastern  corner  of  the  State  in  1829  brought  down 
upon  the  Cherokee  lands  a  horde  of  scrambling, 
lawless  fortune  seekers,  numbered  already  in  1830 


210  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


by  the  thousand.  None  the  less,  the  Cherokee 
opposition  stiffened.  The  Indian  legislative  coun¬ 
cil  voted  that  all  who  accepted  lands  beyond  the 
Mississippi  and  settled  on  them  should  forfeit  their 
tribal  membership,  that  those  who  sold  their  in¬ 
dividual  property  to  emigrate  should  be  flogged, 
and  that  those  who  voted  to  sell  a  part  or  all  of  the 
tribal  possessions  should  be  put  to  death. 

One  resource  remained  to  be  exhausted  in 
defense  of  the  Indian  claims;  this  was  the  courts. 
But  here  again  things  went  unfavorably.  After 
many  delays  a  test  case,  Cherokee  Nation  vs.  State 
of  Georgia,  was  placed  upon  the  docket  of  the  Su¬ 
preme  Court.  The  bill  set  forth  the  plaintiff  to  be 
“the  Cherokee  Nation  of  Indians,  a  foreign  State, 
not  owning  allegiance  to  the  United  States,  nor  to 
any  State  of  this  union,  nor  to  any  prince,  potentate, 
or  State  other  than  their  own,  ”  and  it  asked  that 
the  Court  declare  null  the  Georgia  Acts  of  1828  and 
1829  and  enjoin  the  Georgia  officials  from  interfer¬ 
ing  with  Cherokee  lands,  mines,  and  other  prop¬ 
erty,  or  with  the  persons  of  Cherokees  on  account 
of  anything  done  by  them  within  the  Cherokee 
territory.  The  Indians  were  represented  before 
the  Court  by  two  attorneys,  one  of  them  being 
William  Wirt;  Georgia  employed  no  counsel.  The 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


211 


opinion  of  the  Court  as  announced  at  the  January 
term,  1831,  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall  was  that 
while  the  Cherokee  nation  was  a  State  and  had 
uniformly  been  dealt  with  as  such  by  the  Federal 
Government  since  1789,  it  was  not  a  “foreign 
State”  within  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution, 
and  therefore  was  not  entitled  to  sue  in  that  char¬ 
acter  in  the  courts  of  the  United  States.  “If  it  be 
true,”  the  decision  concluded,  “that  wrongs  have 
been  inflicted  and  that  still  greater  are  to  be  appre¬ 
hended,  this  is  not  the  tribunal  which  can  redress 
the  past  or  prevent  the  future.  The  motion  for  an 
injunction  is  denied.” 

The  case  was  thus  thrown  out  of  court.  Yet  the 
Cherokees  were  recognized  as  a  “domestic,  depend¬ 
ent”  nation,  and  there  was  nothing  in  the  decision 
to  indicate  that  the  extension  of  the  laws  of  Geor¬ 
gia  over  them  was  valid  and  constitutional.  In¬ 
deed,  in  a  second  case  that  came  up  shortly, 
Worcester  vs.  State  of  Georgia,  the  Court  strongly 
backed  up  the  Indians’  contention.  Worcester  was 
a  Presbyterian  missionary  who  was  imprisoned  for 
violation  of  a  Georgia  statute  forbidding  white 
persons  to  reside  in  the  Cherokee  territory  without 
a  license.  The  case  was  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  in  the  decision  of  March  10,  1832, 


212  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

Marshall  aflBrmed  the  status  of  the  Cherokees  as 
a  “nation”  within  whose  territory  “the  laws  of 
Georgia  can  have  no  force,  and  which  the  citizens 
of  Georgia  have  no  right  to  enter  but  with  the 
assent  of  the  Cherokees  themselves  or  in  con¬ 
formity  with  treaties  and  with  the  acts  of  Con¬ 
gress.”  The  statute  was  accordingly  declared  to 
be  unconstitutional  and  Worcester  was  ordered  to 
be  discharged. 

This  ought  to  have  been  enough  to  protect  the 

Cherokees  in  their  rights.  But  it  was  not,  and 

* 

■  for  two  reasons :  the  contempt  of  Georgia  for  the 
Court’s  opinions,  and  the  refusal  of  Jackson  to 
restrain  the  State  in  its  headstrong  course.  Al¬ 
ready  the  state  authorities  had  refused  to  take 
notice  of  a  writ  of  error  to  the  Supreme  Court 
sued  out  in  December,  1830,  in  behalf  of  a  con¬ 
demned  Cherokee,  Corn  Tassel,  and  had  per¬ 
mitted  the  execution  of  the  unfortunate  redskin. 
The  state  court  now  refused  to  issue  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  in  behalf  of  Worcester,  and  the 
prisoner  was  held  —  precisely  as  if  the  law  under 
which  he  was  convicted  had  been  pronounced 
constitutional  —  until  he  was  pardoned  by  the 
Governor  a  year  later. 

This  action  on  the  part  of  the  State  was,  of 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


213 


course,  nothing  less  than  nullification.  Yet  Jack- 
son  did  not  lift  a  finger.  “  John  Marshall  has  made 
his  decision,”  he  is  reported  to  have  said;  “now 
let  him  enforce  it.”  The  South  Carolinians  were 
quick  to  seize  upon  the  inconsistencies  of  the  situa¬ 
tion.  Nullification  in  their  State  was  apparently 
one  thing;  in  Georgia,  quite  another.  The  very 
fact,  however,  that  the  Georgians  had  successfully 
defied  the  federal  Supreme  Court  did  much  to 
encourage  their  neighbors  in  a  course  of  similar 
boldness.  Jackson’s  leniency  toward  Georgia  has 
never  been  wholly  explained.  He  was  undoubtedly^ 
influenced  by  his  sympathy  with  the  purpose  of  the 
State  to  establish  its  jurisdiction  over  all  lands 
within  its  borders.  Furthermore  he  cherished 
an  antipathy  for  Marshall  which  even  led  him  to 
refuse  in  1835  to  attend  a  memorial  meeting  in  the 
great  jurist’s  honor.  But  these  considerations  do 
not  wholly  cover  the  case.  All  that  the  historian 
can  say  is  that  the  President  chose  to  take  notice 
of  the  threats  and  acts  of  South  Carolina  and  to 
ignore  the  threats  and  acts  of  Georgia,  without  ever 
being  troubled  by  the  inconsistency  of  his  course. 
His  political  career  affords  many  such  illustra¬ 
tions  of  the  arbitrary  and  even  erratic  character  j 
of  his  mind. 


214  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Meanwhile  the  great  Indian  migration  was  set¬ 
ting  in.  Emulating  the  example  of  Georgia,  Ala¬ 
bama  and  Mississippi  extended  their  laws  over 
all  of  the  Indian  lands  within  their  boundaries; 
and  in  all  parts  of  the  South  the  red  folk  —  some 
of  them  joyously,  but  most  of  them  sorrowfully  — 
prepared  to  take  up  their  long  journey.  In  1832 
the  Creeks  yielded  to  the  United  States  all  of  their 
remaining  lands  east  of  the  Mississippi.  By  the 
spring  of  1833  the  Choctaws  and  Chickasaws  had 
done  the  same  thing  and  were  on  their  way  west¬ 
ward.  Only  the  Cherokees  remained,  and  in  his 
message  of  December  3,  1833,  Jackson  reiterated 
his  earlier  arguments  for  their  removal.  Realizing 
that  further  resistance  was  useless,  a  portion  of  the 
tribe  signified  its  readiness  to  go.  The  remainder, 
however,  held  out,  and  it  was  only  at  the  close  of 
1835  that  the  long-desired  treaty  of  cession  could 
be  secured.  All  Cherokee  lands  east  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  were  now  relinquished  to  the  United  States, 
which  agreed  to  pay  five  million  dollars  for  them, 
to  provide  an  adequate  home  in  the  new  Indian 
Territory  created  by  Congress  during  the  preced¬ 
ing  year,  and  to  bear  all  the  costs  of  removing  the 
tribe  thither. 

It  was  not  alone  the  South,  however,  that 


THE  SOUTHERN  INDIANS 


215 


witnessed  widespread  displacements  of  Indian  pop¬ 
ulations  in  the  J acksonian  period.  How  the  Black 
Hawk  War  of  1832  grew  out  of,  and  in  turn  led 
to,  removals  in  the  remoter  Northwest  has  been 
related  in  another  volume  in  this  series.'  And, 
in  almost  every  western  State,  surviving  Indian 
titles  were  rapidly  extinguished.  Between  1829 
and  1837  ninety-four  Indian  treaties,  most  of  them 
providing  for  transfers  of  territory,  were  con¬ 
cluded;  and  before  Jackson  went  out  of  office 
he  was  able  to  report  to  Congress  that,  “with  the 
exception  of  two  small  bands  living  in  Ohio  and 
Indiana,  not  exceeding  fifteen  hundred  persons, 
and  of  the  Cherokees,  all  of  the  tribes  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Mississippi,  and  extending  from  Lake 
Michigan  to  Florida,  have  entered  into  engage¬ 
ments  which  will  lead  to  their  transplantation.” 
With  little  delay  the  Cherokees,  too,  were  added 
to  this  list,  although  a  group  of  irreconcilables 
resisted  until  1838,  when  they  were  forcibly 
ejected  by  a  contingent  of  United  States  troops 
under  General  Winfield  Scott. 

All  of  this  was  done  not  without  strong  protest 
from  other  people  besides  the  Indians.  Some  who 

^See  The  Old  NorihwesU  by  Frederic  Austin  Ogg  (in  The  Chron- 
icles,  of  America),  ^ 


216  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


objected  did  so  for  political  effect.  When  Clay 
and  Calhoun,  for  example,  thundered  in  the  Sen¬ 
ate  against  the  removal  treaties,  they  were  merely 
seeking  to  discredit  the  Administration;  both  held 
views  on  Indian  policy  which  were  substantially 
the  same  as  Jackson’s.  But  there  was  also  ob¬ 
jection  on  humanitarian  grounds;  and  the  Society 
of  Friends  and  other  religious  bodies  engaged  in 
converting  and  educating  the  southern  tribes  used 
all  possible  influence  to  defeat  the  plan  of  removal. 
On  the  whole,  however,  the  country  approved 
what  was  being  done.  People  felt  that  the  further 
presence  of  large,  organized  bodies  of  natives  in  the 
midst  of  a  rapidly  growing  white  population,  and  of 
tribes  setting  themselves  up  as  quasi-independent 
nations  within  the  bounds  of  the  States,  was  an 
anomaly  that  could  not  last;  and  they  considered 
that,  distressing  as  were  many  features  of  the 
removals,  both  white  man  and  red  man  would 
ultimately  be  better  off. 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION 

“Oh,  hang  General  Jackson,”  exclaimed  Fanny 
Kemble  one  day,  after  dinner,  in  the  cabin  of  the 
ship  that  brought  her,  in  the  summer  of  1832,  to 
the  United  States.  Even  before  she  set  foot  on 
our  shores,  the  brilliant  English  actress  was  tired 
of  the  din  of  politics  and  bored  by  the  incessant 
repetition  of  the  President’s  name.  Subsequently 
she  was  presented  at  the  White  House  and  had 
an  opportunity  to  form  her  own  opinion  of  the 
“monarch”  whose  name  and  deeds  were  on  every¬ 
body’s  lips;  and  the  impression  was  by  no  means 
unfavorable.  “Very  tall  and  thin  he  was,”  says 
her  journal,  “but  erect  and  dignified;  a  good  speci¬ 
men  of  a  fine  old,  well-battered  soldier;  his  man¬ 
ners  perfectly  simple  and  quiet,  and,  therefore, 
very  good.” 

Small  wonder  that  the  name  of  Jackson  was 
heard  wherever  men  and  women  congregated  in 

217 


218  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


1832!  Something  more  than  half  of  the  people  of 
the  country  were  at  the  moment  trying  to  elect  the 
General  to  a  second  term  as  President,  and  some¬ 
thing  less  than  half  were  putting  forth  their  best 
efforts  to  prevent  such  a  “ calamity.”  Three  years 
of  Jacksonian  rule  had  seen  the  civil  service  revo¬ 
lutionized,  the  Cabinet  banished  from  its  tradi¬ 
tional  place  in  the  governmental  system,  and  the 
conduct  of  the  executive  branch  given  a  wholly 
new  character  and  bent.  Internal  improvements 
had  been  checked  by  the  Maysville  Road  veto. 
The  United  States  Bank  had  been  given  a  blow, 
through  another  veto,  which  sent  it  staggering. 
Political  fortunes  had  been  made  and  unmade  by 
a  wave  of  the  President’s  hand.  The  first  attempt 
of  a  State  to  put  the  stability  of  the  Union  to 
the  test  had  brought  the  Chief  Executive  dramat¬ 
ically  into  the  r61e  of  defender  of  the  nation’s 
dignity  and  perpetuity.  No  previous  President 
had  so  frequently  challenged  the  attention  of  the 
public;  none  had  kept  himself  more  continuously 
in  the  forefront  of  political  controversy. 

Frail  health  and  close  application  to  official 
duties  prevented  Jackson  from  traveling  exten¬ 
sively  during  his  eight  years  in  the  Wffiite  House. 
He  saw  the  Hermitage  but  once  in  this  time,  and 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  219 

on  but  one  occasion  did  he  venture  far  from  the 
capital.  This  was  in  the  summer  of  1833,  when  he 
toured  the  Middle  States  and  New  England  north¬ 
ward  as  far  as  Concord,  New  Hampshire.  Ac¬ 
companied  by  Van  Buren,  Lewis  Cass,  Levi  Wood¬ 
bury,  and  other  men  of  prominence,  the  President 
set  oflF  from  Washington  in  early  June.  At  Balti¬ 
more,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  intervening 
cities  the  party  was  received  with  all  possible 
demonstrations  of  regard.  Processions  moved 
through  crowded  streets;  artillery  thundered  sa¬ 
lutes;  banquet  followed  banquet;  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  masses  was  unrestrained.  At  New  York 
the  furnishings  of  the  hotel  suite  occupied  by  the 
President  were  eventually  auctioned  ofiF  as  memen¬ 
toes  of  the  occasion. 

New  England  was,  in  the  main,  enemy  country. 
None  the  less,  the  President  was  received  there 
with  unstinted  goodwill.  Edward  Everett  said 
that  only  two  other  men  had  ever  been  welcomed 
in  Boston  as  Jackson  was.  They  were  Washing¬ 
ton  and  La  Fayette.  The  President’s  determined 
stand  against  nullification  was  fresh  in  mind,  and 
the  people,  regardless  of  party,  were  not  slow  to 
express  their  appreciation.  Their  cordiality  was 
fully  reciprocated.  “He  is  amazingly  tickled 


220  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


with  the  Yankees,”  reports  a  fellow  traveler  more 
noted  for  veracity  than  for  elegance  of  speech, 
“and  the  more  he  sees  on  ’em,  the  better  he  likes 
’em.  ‘No  nullification  here,’  says  he.  ‘No,’ 
says  I,  ‘General;  Mr.  Calhoun  would  stand  no 
more  chance  down  east  than  a  stumped-tail  bull 
in  fly  time.’”,  // 

To  the  infinite  disgust  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Harvard  University  conferred  upon  the  distin¬ 
guished  visitor  the  honorary  degree  of  doctor  of 
laws.  In  the  course  of  the  ceremony  one  of  the 
seniors  delivered,  in  Latin,  a  salutatory  concluding 
with  the  words :  “  Harvard  welcomes  Jackson  the 

President.  She  embraces  Jackson  the  Patriot.” 
“A  splendid  compliment,  sir,  a  splendid  compli¬ 
ment,  ”  declared  the  honored  guest  after  Woodbury 
had  translated  the  phrases  for  his  benefit;  “but 
why  talk  about  so  live  a  thing  as  patriotism  in  a 
dead  language?”  At  the  close  of  the  exercises 
the  students  filed  past  the  President  and  were  in¬ 
troduced  to  him,  each  greeting  him,  “to  the  infinite 
edification  and  amusement  of  the  grizzly  old  war¬ 
rior,”  by  his  new  title  Doctor  Jackson.  The  wits 
of  the  opposition  lost  no  opportunity  to  poke  fun 
at  the  President’s  accession  to  the  brotherhood  of 
scholars.  As  he  was  closing  a  speech  some  days 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  221 


later  an  auditor  called  out,  “You  must  give  them 
a  little  Latin,  Doctor”  In  nowise  abashed,  the 
President  solemnly  doffed  his  hat  again,  stepped 
to  the  front  of  the  platform,  and  resumed:  “J5 
pluribus  unum,  my  friends,  sine  qua  non!” 

Life  at  the  White  House,  as  one  writer  has  re¬ 
marked,  lost  under  Jackson  something  of  the  good 
form  of  the  Virginia  regime,  but  it  lost  nothing 
of  the  air  of  domesticity.  Throughout  the  two 
Administrations  the  mistress  of  the  mansion  was 
Mrs.  Andrew  Jackson  Donelson,  wife  of  the  Presi¬ 
dent’s  secretary  and  in  every  respect  a  very  ca¬ 
pable  woman.  Of  formality  there  was  little  or  none. 
Major  Lewis  was  a  member  of  the  presidential  house¬ 
hold,  and  other  intimates  —  Van  Buren,  Kendall, 
Blair,  Hill — dropped  in  at  anytime,  “before  break¬ 
fast,  or  in  the  evening,  as  inclination  prompted.” 
The  President  was  always  accessible  to  callers, 
whether  or  not  their  business  was  important.  Yet 
he  found  much  time,  especially  in  the  evenings,  for 
the  enjoyment  of  his  long  reed  pipe  with  red  clay 
bowl,  in  the  intimacy  of  the  White  House  living 
room,  with  perhaps  a  Cabinet  officer  to  read  dis¬ 
patches  or  other  state  papers  to  him  in  a  corner, 
while  the  ladies  sewed  and  chatted  and  half  a 
dozen  children  played  about  the  room. 


222  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


Social  aflFairs  there  were,  of  course.  But  they 
were  simple  enough  to  please  the  most  ardent 
Jeffersonian  —  much  too  simple  to  please  people 
accustomed  to  somewhat  rigorous  etiquette.  Thus 
George  Bancroft,  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
one  of  Washington’s  most  punctilious  gentlemen, 
thought  well  of  Jackson’s  character  but  very  poorly 
of  his  levees.  In  describing  a  White  House  recep¬ 
tion  which  he  attended  in  1831,  he  wrote: 

The  old  man  stood  in  the  center  of  a  little  circle,  about 
large  enough  for  a  cotillion,  and  shook  hands  wdth  every¬ 
body  that  offered.  The  number  of  ladies  who  attended 
was  small;  nor  were  they  brilliant.  But  to  compensate 
for  it  there  was  a  throng  of  apprentices,  boys  of  all  ages, 
men  not  civilized  enough  to  walk  about  the  room  with 
their  hats  off;  the  vilest  promiscuous  medley  that  ever 
was  congregated  in  a  decent  house;  many  of  the  lowest 
gathering  round  the  doors,  pouncing  with  avidity  upon 
the  wine  and  refreshments,  tearing  the  cake  with  the 
ravenous  keenness  of  intense  hunger;  starvelings,  and 
fellows  with  dirty  faces  and  dirty  manners;  all  the  refuse 
that  Washington  could  turn  forth  from  its  workshops 
and  stables. 

The  “people”  still  ruled.  Yet  it  was  only  the 
public  receptions  that  presented  such  scenes  of  dis¬ 
order.  The  dinners  which  the  President  occasion¬ 
ally  gave  were  well  appointed.  A  Philadelphia 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  223 


gentleman  who  was  once  invited  to  the  White 
House  with  two  or  three  friends  testifies  that  “the 
dinner  was  very  neat  and  served  in  excellent  taste, 
while  the  wines  were  of  the  choicest  qualities.  The 
President  himself  dined  on  the  simplest  fare :  bread, 
milk,  and  vegetables.” 

Jackson  was  never  a  rich  man,  and  throughout 
his  stay  in  the  White  House  he  found  it  no  easy 
matter  to  make  ends  meet.  He  entertained  his 
personal  friends  and  official  guests  royally.  He 
lavished  hospitality  upon  the  general  public,  some¬ 
times  spending  as  much  as  a  thousand  or  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  on  a  single  levee.  He  drew  a  sharp 
line  between  personal  and  public  expenditures,  and 
met  out  of  his  own  pocket  outlays  that  under  ad¬ 
ministrations  both  before  and  after  were  charged 
to  the  public  account.  He  loaned  many  thousands 
of  dollars,  in  small  amounts,  to  needy  friends,  to 
old  comrades  in  arms,  and  especially  to  widows  and 
orphans  of  his  soldiery  and  of  his  political  support¬ 
ers;  and  a  large  proportion  of  these  debts  he  not 
only  never  collected  but  actually  forgot.  Receipts 
from  the  Hermitage  farm  during  his  years  of  ab¬ 
sence  were  small,  and  fire  in  1834  made  necessary 
a  rebuilding  of  the  family  residence  at  consider¬ 
able  cost.  The  upshot  was  that  when,  in  1837,  the 


224  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


General  was  preparing  to  leave  Washington,  he  had 
to  scrape  together  every  available  dollar  in  cash, 
and  in  addition  pledge  the  cotton  crop  of  his  plan¬ 
tation  six  months  ahead  for  a  loan  of  six  thousand 
dollars,  in  order  to  pay  the  bills  outstanding  against 
him  in  the  capital. 

Meanwhile  the  country  came  to  the  election  of 
1836.  From  the  time  of  Van  Buren’s  withdrawal 
from  the  Cabinet  in  1831  to  become,  with  Jack¬ 
son’s  full  approval,  a  candidate  for  the  vice  presi¬ 
dency,  there  never  was  doubt  that  the  New  Yorker 
would  be  the  Democratic  presidential  nominee  in 
1836,  or  that  his  election  would  mean  a  continua¬ 
tion,  in  most  respects,  of  the  Jacksonian  regime. 
Never  did  a  President  more  clearly  pick  his  succes¬ 
sor.  There  was,  of  course,  some  protest  within  the 
party.  V an  Buren  was  not  popular,  and  it  required 
all  of  the  personal  and  official  influence  that  the 
President  could  bring  to  bear,  backed  up  by  judi¬ 
cious  use  of  the  patronage,  to  carry  his  program 
through.  At  that,  his  own  State  rebelled  and, 
through  a  resolution  of  the  Legislature,  put  itself 
behind  the  candidacy  of  Senator  Hugh  L.  White. 
The  bold  actions  of  his  second  Administration,  de¬ 
fiant  alike  of  precedent  and  opposition,  had  alien¬ 
ated  many  of  the  President’s  more  intelligent  and 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  225 


conservative  followers.  Yet  the  allegiance  of  the 
masses  was  unshaken;  and  when  the  Democratic 
convention  assembled  at  Baltimore  in  May,  1835, 
—  a  year  and  a  half  before  the  election  —  the 
nomination  of  Van  Buren  was  secured  without  a 
dissenting  vote.  There  was  no  need  to  adopt  a 
platform;  everybody  understood  that  Jackson’s 
policies  were  the  platform,  and  that  Jackson  him¬ 
self  was  as  truly  before  the  electorate  as  if  he  had 
been  a  candidate  for  a  third  term.  In  his  letter 
of  acceptance  Van  Buren  met  all  expectations  by 
declaring  his  purpose  “to  tread  generally  in  the 
footsteps  of  President  Jackson.” 

The  anti-Administration  forces  entered  the  cam¬ 
paign  with  no  flattering  prospects.  Since  1832 
their  opposition  to  “executive  usurpation”  had  won 
for  them  a  new  party  name,  “Whig.”  But  neither 
their  opposition  nor  any  other  circumstance  had 
given  them  party  solidarity.  National  Republi¬ 
cans,  anti-Masons,  converted  Jacksonians,  state 
rights  men  —  upon  what  broad  and  constructive 
platform  could  they  hope  to  unite  They  had  no 
lack  of  able  presidential  aspirants.  There  was 
Clay,  the  National  Republican  candidate  in  1832; 
there  was  Webster,  of  whom  Jackson  once  said 
that  he  would  never  be  President  because  he  was 

IS 


226  THE  REIGN  OP  ANDREW  JACKSON 


“too  far  east,  knows  too  much,  and  is  too  honest”; 
and  there  were  lesser  lights,  such  as  Judge  John 
McLean.  But,  again,  how  could  the  many  dis¬ 
cordant  groups  be  rallied  to  the  support  of  any 
single  leader? 

Jackson  predicted  in  1834  that  his  opponents 
would  nominate  William  Henry  Harrison,  because 
“  they  have  got  to  take  up  a  soldier;  they  have  tried 
orators  enough.”  The  prophecy  was  a  shrewd  one, 
and  in  1840  it  was  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  Upon  the 
present  occasion,  however,  the  leaders  decided  to 
place  no  single  nominee  in  the  field,  but  rather  to 
bring  forward  a  number  of  candidates  who  could  be 
expected  to  develop  local  strength  and  so  to  split 
the  vote  as  to  throw  the  final  choice  into  the  House 
of  Representatives.  This  seemed  the  only  hope  of 
circumventing  Van  Buren’s  election.  Four  sec¬ 
tional  candidates  entered  the  race:  W'^ebster  was 
backed  by  New  England;  the  Northwest  united 
on  Harrison;  the  Southwest  joined  the  Tennessee 
revolters  in  support  of  White;  Ohio  had  her  own 
candidate  in  the  person  of  McLean. 

The  plan  was  ingenious,  but  it  did  not  work. 
Van  Buren  received  170  electoral  votes  against  124 
in  spite  of  his  opponents.  He  carried  fifteen  of  the 
twenty-six  States,  including  four  in  New  England. 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  227 


Harrison  received  73  votes,  White  26  (including 
those  of  Tennessee),  and  Webster  14.  South  Caro¬ 
lina  refused  to  support  any  of  the  candidates  on 
either  side  and  threw  away  her  votes  on  W.  P. 
Mangum  of  North  Carolina.  The  Democrats  kept 
control  of  both  branches  of  Congress. 

Victory,  therefore,  rested  with  the  Jacksonians 
—  which  means  with  Jackson  himself.  The  Demo¬ 
crats  would  have  control  of  both  the  executive  and 
legislative  branches  of  the  Government  for  some 
years  to  come;  the  Bank  would  not  soon  be  re¬ 
chartered;  the  veto  power  would  remain  intact; 
federal  expenditure  upon  internal  improvements 
had  been  curbed,  and  the  “American  system”  had 
been  checked;  the  national  debt  was  discharged 
and  revenue  was  superabundant;  Jackson  could 
look  back  over  the  record  of  his  Administrations 
with  pride  and  forward  to  the  rule  of  “Little  Van” 
with  satisfaction.  “When  I  review  the  arduous 
administration  through  which  I  have  passed,  ”  de¬ 
clared  the  President  soon  after  the  results  of  the 
election  were  made  known,  “the  formidable  opposi¬ 
tion,  to  its  very  close,  of  the  combined  talents, 
wealth,  and  power  of  the  whole  aristocracy  of  the 
United  States,  aided  as  it  is  by  the  moneyed  monop¬ 
olies  of  the  whole  country  with  their  corrupting 


228  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


influence,  with  which  we  had  to  contend,  I  am  truly 
thankful  to  my  God  for  this  happy  result.” 

Congress  met  on  the  5th  of  December  for  the 
closing  session  of  the  Administration.  The  note 
of  victory  pervaded  the  President’s  message.  Yet 
there  was  one  more  triumph  to  be  won :  the  resolu¬ 
tion  of  censure  voted  by  the  Senate  in  1834  was 
still  oflScially  on  the  record  book.  Now  it  was  that 
Benton  finally  procured  the  passage  of  his  expung¬ 
ing  resolution,  although  not  until  both  branches  of 
Congress  had  been  dragged  into  controversy  more 
personal  and  acrid,  if  possible,  than  any  in  the  past 
eight  years.  The  action  taken  was  probably  un¬ 
constitutional.  But  Jackson’s  “honor”  was  vin¬ 
dicated,  and  that  was  all  that  he  and  his  friends 
saw,  or  cared  to  see,  in  the  proceeding. 

As  early  as  1831  the  President  conceived  the  idea 
of  issuing  a  farewell  address  to  the  people  upon  the 
eve  of  his  retirement;  and  a  few  weeks  before  the 
election  of  Van  Buren  he  sent  to  Taney  a  list  of 
subjects  which  he  proposed  to  touch  upon  in  the 
document,  requesting  him  to  “throw  on  paper”  his 
ideas  concerning  them.  The  address  was  issued  on 
March  4,  1837,  and  followed  closely  the  copy  sub¬ 
sequently  found  in  Taney’s  handwriting  in  the  Jack- 
son  manuscripts.  Its  contents  were  thoroughly 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  229 


commonplace,  being  indeed  hardly  more  than 
a  resume  of  the  eight  annual  messages;  and  it 
might  well  have  been  dismissed  as  the  amiable 
musings  of  a  garrulous  old  man.  But  nothing  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  name  of  Jackson  ever  failed  to  stir 
controversy.  The  Whigs  ridiculed  the  egotism 
which  underlay  the  palpable  imitation  of  Washing¬ 
ton.  “Happily,”  said  the  New  York  American, 
“it  is  the  last  humbug  which  the  mischievous 
popularity  of  this  illiterate,  violent,  vain,  and 
iron-willed  soldier  can  impose  upon  a  confiding 
and  credulous  people.”  The  Democrats,  however, 
lauded  the  address,  praised  the  wisdom  and  sin¬ 
cerity  of  its  autho”  and  laid  away  among  their 
most  valued  mementoes  the  white  satin  copies 
which  admiring  friends  scattered  broadcast  over 
the  country. 

Showered  with  evidences  of  imdiminished  popu¬ 
larity,  the  General  came  down  to  his  last  day  in 
office.  One  enthusiast  sent  him  a  light  wagon 
made  entirely  of  hickory  sticks  with  the  bark  upon 
them.  Another  presented  a  phaeton  made  of  wood 
taken  from  the  old  frigate  Constitution.  A  third 
capped  the  climax  by  forwarding  from  New  York 
a  cheese  four  feet  in  diameter,  two  feet  thick,  and 
weighing  fourteen  hundred  pounds  —  twice  as 


230  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


large,  the  Globe  fondly  pointed  out,  as  the  cheese 
presented  to  Jefferson  under  similar  circumstances 
a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier.  From  all  parts  of 
the  country  came  callers,  singly  and  in  delegations, 
to  pay  their  respects  and  to  assure  the  outgoing 
Chief  of  their  goodwill  and  admiration.  March 
4, 1837,  was  a  raw,  disagreeable  day.  But  Jackson, 
pale  and  racked  by  disease,  rode  with  his  chosen 
successor  to  the  place  where  he  had  himself  as¬ 
sumed  office  eight  years  before,  and  sat  imcovered 
while  the  oath  was  administered  and  the  inaugural 
delivered.  The  suave,  elegantly  dressed  Van  Bu- 
ren  was  politely  applauded  as  the  new  Chief  to 
whom  respect  was  due.  But  it  was  the  tall,  hag¬ 
gard,  white-haired  soldier-politician  who  had  put 
Van  Buren  where  he  was  who  awoke  the  spontane¬ 
ous  enthusiasm  of  the  crowds. 

Three  days  after  the  inauguration  Jackson 
started  for  the  Hermitage.  His  trip  became  a  se¬ 
ries  of  ovations,  and  he  was  obliged  several  times 
to  pause  for  rest.  At  last  he  reached  Nashville, 
where  once  again,  as  in  the  old  days  of  the  Indian 
wars,  he  was  received  with  an  acclaim  deeply  tinged 
by  personal  friendship  and  neighborly  pride.  A 
great  banquet  in  his  honor  was  presided  over  by 
James  K.  Polk,  now  Speaker  of  the  national  House 


THOMAS  H.  BENTON 


Engraving  by  W.  G.  Armstrong,  after  a  drawing  by  Fendrick.  In  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery  of  Distinguished  Americans. 


:0  'nn;  KEIGN  OF  'ANDREW  J\CiCSON 


Ore  (riohe  iondly  pointed  out,  s  the  cheese 
[I-'-' irefferson  under  ‘r.Li.iinr  •’irci  fistouces 
a  quaii,er  of  a  century  ei^ilier.  Fr^.^r  :iu  ,■  i-t  of 
;lie  country  riioe  t^ilrrs..  singly  and  ifwclegii.  icas, 
to  pay  their  respects  and  to  assure  the  outgo  tug 
Chief  of  tbe’r  goodwill  and  j miration.  Moreh 
E  1837,  v^^as  a  disagreeable  day.  But  JaA;kseii, 
pale  and  racked  by  disease,  rode  with  bis  rhoseu . 
successor  to  the  place  where  he  had  himself  as-  ■ 
sumrxl  oiSi a:  eight  years  before,  and  sat  imeovered 
wyietiii  oath  ♦■he  ’nautfio-i- 

;  3il}  ii  I  xd  ,§r^8OT4ji).  .'g  gn/vragia 

.&stDo’m5\t  k  b?is\«,svj^s\s\v/i(\.  \<Tvst^iiVn'5 

i  ,  ii  was  .  •-  iiie-x  oppi'iuded  as  the  new  Clrief  to 
nho!'  •<  was  dr.'?.  Bui  it  was  the  tall,  hag-' 
wl.i; .'  uaired  soielicr-poiiticiau  who  hsd  put 
tu'u  re  hr 's  xs  who  avroke  Hie  spontane- 


r'.,v 

t  cll  .»  *  r 


ou.> vM  O'  Vi#  c-owui^.  , 

4 

Three  days  a  ileT-  I  he  ina'iiguration  Jsckgon 
lartedfor  tlu-  Ilennitage.  Ris  trip  became  a' 
rie-s  of  »•  v  .’liruiis,  and  la.  was  obligfxi  several  time^ 

.'i 

to  pause  fo?  rest.  At  last  he  reached  Nashr-ilie, 
•  here  once  again  as  in  the  ok?  days  of  the  Indiai 
•Tars,  he  was  received  w'ith  « .  :  (icciaim  deeply  tir»ycd 
by  personal  friendship  .and  neighborly  pride  ,4 
yro'it  banquet  in  his  honor  was  pre.sideii  o\- lo- 
rues  K  Polk,  now  Speaker  of  the  naiiof  r,:  i  o  ; ' 


Er  nviurB,  Anders  an— Lam  h.  La.  11,'Y 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  231 


of  Representatives;  and  the  orators  vied  one  with 
another  in  extolling  his  virtues  and  depicting  his 
services  to  the  country.  Then  Jackson  went  on  to 
the  homestead  whose  seclusion  he  coveted. 

No  one  knew  better  than  the  ex-President  him¬ 
self  that  his  coimse  was  almost  run.  He  was  sev¬ 
enty  years  of  age  and  seldom  free  from  pain  for 
an  hour.  He  considered  himself,  moreover,  a  poor 
man  —  mainly,  it  appears,  because  he  went  back 
to  Tennessee  owing  ten  thousand  dollars  and  with 
only  ninety  dollars  in  his  pockets.  He  was,  how¬ 
ever,  only  “land  poor,”  for  his  plantation  of 
twenty-six  hundred  acres  was  rich  and  valua¬ 
ble,  and  he  had  a  hundred  and  forty  slaves  — 
“servants”  he  always  called  them  —  besides  large 
numbers  of  horses  and  cattle.  A  year  or  two  of 
thrifty  supervision  brought  his  lands  and  herds 
back  to  liberal  yields ;  his  debts  were  soon  paid  off ; 
and  notwithstanding  heavy  outlays  for  his  adopted 
son,  whose  investments  invariably  turned  out 
badly,  he  was  soon  able  to  put  aside  all  anxiety 
over  pecuniary  matters. 

Established  again  in  his  old  home,  surrounded  by 
congenial  relatives  and  friends,  respected  by  neigh¬ 
bors  without  regard  to  politics,  and  visited  from 
time  to  time  by  notable  foreigners  and  Americans, 


232  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 

% 

Jackson  found  much  of  satisfaction  in  his  declin¬ 
ing  years.  For  a  time  he  fully  lived  up  to  the 
promise  made  to  Benton  and  Blair  that  he  would 
keep  clear  of  politics.  His  interest  in  the  fortunes 
of  his  party,  however,  was  not  diminished  by  his 
retirement  from  public  life.  He  corresponded 
freely  with  Van  Buren,  whose  policies  he  in  most 
respects  approved;  and  as  the  campaign  of  1840 
approached  the  “old  war-horse  began  once  more 
to  sniff  the  battle  from  afar.”  Admitting  to  his 
friends  that  the  situation  looked  “a  little  dubious,” 
he  exerted  himself  powerfully  to  bring  about  the 
reelection  of  the  New  Yorker.  He  wrote  a  letter 
belittling  the  military  qualities  of  the  Whig  can¬ 
didate,  thereby  probably  doing  the  Democratic 
cause  more  harm  than  good;  and  finally,  to  avert 
the  humiliation  of  a  Whig  victory  in  Tennessee, 
he  “took  the  stump”  and  denounced  the  enemy 
up  and  down  through  all  western  Tennessee  and 
southern  Kentucky.  But  “  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler 
too”  was  too  much  for  him;  the  Whig  candidates 
carried  both  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  and  won  the 
nation-wide  contest  by  234  to  60  electoral  votes. 

The  old  warrior  took  the  defeat  —  his  defeat,  he 
always  regarded  it  —  philosophically,  and  at  once 
began  to  lay  plans  for  a  recovery  of  Democratic 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  233 


supremacy  in  1844.  For  another  quadrennium  his 
hand  was  on  the  party  throttle.  When  men  specu¬ 
lated  as  to  whether  Van  Buren,  General  Cass, 
General  Butler,  or  Senator  Benton  would  be  the 
standard  bearer  in  1844,  they  always  asked  what 
Jackson’s  edict  on  the  subject  would  be;  and  the 
final  selection  of  James  K.  Polk,  while  not  fully 
dictated  by  the  ex-President,  was  the  result  of  a 
compromise  in  which  his  advice  played  a  prom¬ 
inent  part.  Though  past  seventy-seven  and  hard¬ 
ly  able  to  sign  his  name,  Jackson  threw  himself 
into  the  campaign  and  undoubtedly  contributed  to 
the  election  of  his  fellow-Tennesseean.  His  satis¬ 
faction  with  the  outcome  and  with  the  annexation 
of  Texas  which  quickly  followed  found  expression 
in  a  barbecue  attended  by  all  the  Democrats  of  the 
neighborhood  and  by  some  of  note  from  a  distance. 
“We  have  restored  the  Government  to  sound 
principles,  ”  declared  the  host  in  a  brief,  faltering 
speech  from  the  Hermitage  portico,  “  and  extended 
the  area  of  our  institutions  to  the  Rio  Grande. 
Now  for  Oregon  and  Fifty -four-forty.” 

Oregon  —  although  not  to  fifty-four  forty  — 
was  soon  to  be  duly  made  American  soil.  But 
Jackson  did  not  live  to  witness  the  event.  Early  in 
1845  his  health  began  to  fail  rapidly  and  on  the 


234  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


very  day  of  Polk’s  inauguration  he  was  at  the 
point  of  death.  Rallying,  he  struggled  manfully 
for  three  months  against  the  combined  effects  of 
consumption,  dropsy,  and  dysentery.  But  on  Sun¬ 
day,  the  8th  of  June,  the  end  came.  In  accordance 
with  a  pledge  which  he  had  given  his  wife  years 
before,  he  had  become  a  communicant  of  the  Pres¬ 
byterian  church;  and  his  last  words  to  the  friends 
about  his  bedside  were  messages  of  Christian  cheer. 
After  two  days  the  body  was  laid  to  rest  in  the 
Hermitage  garden,  beside  the  grave  of  the  com¬ 
panion  whose  loss  he  had  never  ceased  to  mourn 
with  all  the  feeling  of  which  his  great  nature  was 
capable.  The  authorities  at  the  national  capital 
ordered  public  honors  to  be  paid  to  the  ex-President, 
and  gathei'ings  in  all  parts  of  the  country  listened 
with  much  show  of  feeling  to  appropriate  eulogies. 

“General  Jackson,”  said  Daniel  Webster  to 
Thurlow  Weed  in  1837,  “is  an  honest  and  upright 
man.  He  does  what  he  thinks  is  right,  and  does  it 
with  all  his  might.  He  has  a  violent  temper,  which 
leads  him  often  to  hasty  conclusions.  It  also 
causes  him  to  view  as  personal  to  himself  the  public 
acts  of  other  men.  For  this  reason  there  is  great 
difference  between  Jackson  angry  and  Jackson  in 


THE  JACKSONIAN  SUCCESSION  235 


good  humor.  When  he  is  calm,  his  judgment  is 
good;  when  angry,  it  is  usually  bad.  .  .  .  His 
patriotism  is  no  more  to  be  questioned  than  that  of 
Washington.  He  is  the  greatest  General  we  have 
and,  except  Washington,  the  greatest  we  ever  had.” 

To  this  characterization  of  Andrew  Jackson  by 
his  greatest  American  contemporary  it  is  impossible 
to  make  noteworthy  addition.  His  was  a  charac¬ 
ter  of  striking  contradictions.  His  personal  virtues 
were  honesty,  bravery,  open-heartedness,  chivalry 
toward  women,  hospitality,  steadfastness.  His 
personal  faults  were  irascibility,  egotism,  stubborn¬ 
ness,  vindictiveness,  and  intolerance  of  the  opin¬ 
ions  of  others.  He  was  not  a  statesman;  yet  some 
of  the  highest  qualities  of  statesmanship  were  in 
him.  He  had  a  perception  of  the  public  will  which 
has  rarely  been  surpassed ;  and  in  most,  if  not  all,  of 
the  great  issues  of  his  time  he  had  a  grasp  of  the 
right  end  of  the  question. 

The  country  came  to  the  belief  that  the  National 
Bank  should  not  be  revived.  It  accepted  and  per¬ 
petuated  Van  Buren’s  independent  treasury  plan. 
The  annexation  of  Texas,  which  Jackson  strongly 
favored,  became  an  accomplished  fact  with  the 
approval  of  a  majority  of  the  people.  The  moder¬ 
ated  protective  tariff  to  which  Jackson  inclined 


236  THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON 


was  kept  up  until  the  Civil  War.  The  removal  of 
the  Indians  to  reservations  beyond  the  Mississippi 
fell  in  with  the  views  of  the  public  upon  that  sub¬ 
ject  and  inaugurated  an  Indian  policy  which  was 
closely  adhered  to  for  more  than  half  a  century. 
In  his  vindication  of  executive  independence  Jack- 
son  broke  new  ground,  crudely  enough  it  is  true;  • 
yet,  whatever  the  merits  of  his  ideas  at  the  moment, 
they  reshaped  men’s  conception  of  the  presidency 
and  helped  make  that  office  the  power  that  it  is  to¬ 
day.  The  strong  stand  taken  against  nullification 
clarified  popular  opinion  upon  the  nature  of  the 
Union  and  lent  new  and  powerful  support  to 
national  vigor  and  dignity. 

Over  against  these  achievements  must  be  placed 
the  introduction  of  the  Spoils  System,  which  de¬ 
bauched  the  Civil  Service  and  did  the  country 
lasting  harm;  yet  Jackson  only  responded  to  public 
opinion  which  held  “rotation  in  office  to  be  the 
cardinal  principle  of  democracy.”  It  needed  a  half- 
century  of  experience  to  convince  the  American 
people  of  this  fallacy  and  to  place  the  national 
Civil  Service  beyond  the  reach  of  spoilsmen.  Even 
now  public  opinion  is  slow  to  realize  that  efficiency 
in  office  can  be  secured  only  by  experience  and 
relative  permanence. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


The  events  of  the  period  covered  in  this  volume  are 
described  with  some  fullness  in  all  of  the  general  Ameri¬ 
can  histories.  Of  these,  two  are  especially  noteworthy 
for  literary  quality  and  other  elements  of  popular  in¬ 
terest  :  Woodrow  Wilson’s  History  of  the  American  People, 
5  vols.  (1902),  and  John  B.  McMaster’s  History  of  the 
People  of  the  United  States,  8  vols.  (1883-1913).  The 
Jacksonian  epoch  is  treated  in  Wilson’s  fourth  volume 
and  in  McMaster’s  fifth  and  sixth  volumes.  On  similar 
lines,  but  with  more  emphasis  on  political  and  constitu¬ 
tional  matters,  is  James  Schouler’s  History  of  the  United 
States  under  the  Constitution,  7  vols.  (1880-1913),  vols. 
iii-iv.  One  seeking  a  scholarly  view  of  the  period, 
in  an  adequate  literary  setting,  can  hardly  do  better, 
however,  than  to  read  Frederick  J.  Turner’s  Rise 
of  the  New  West  (1906)  and  William  MacDonald’s 
Jacksonian  Democracy  (1906).  These  are  volumes  xiv 
and  XV  in  The  American  Nation,  edited  by  Albert 
B.  Hart. 

Biographies  are  numerous  and  in  a  number  of  in¬ 
stances  excellent.  Of  lives  of  Jackson,  upwards  of  a 
dozen  have  been  published.  The  most  recent  and  in 
every  respect  the  best  is  John  S.  Bassett’s  Life  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  2  vols.  (1911).  This  work  is  based  throughout 
on  the  sources;  its  literary  quality  is  above  the  average; 

237 


238 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


and  it  appraises  Jackson  and  his  times  in  an  unim- 
peachable  spirit  of  fairness.  Within  very  limited  space, 
W^illiam  G.  Brown’s  Andrew  Jackson  (1900)  tells  the 
story  of  Jackson  admirably;  and  a  good  biography, 
marred  only  by  a  lack  of  sympathy  and  by  occasional 
inaccuracy  in  details,  is  William  G.  Sumner’s  Andrew 
Jackson  (rev.  ed.,  1899).  Of  older  biographies,  the 
most  important  is  James  Parton’s  Life  of  Andrew  Jack- 
Sony  3  vols.  (1861).  This  work  is  sketchy,  full  of  irrele¬ 
vant  or  unimportant  matter,  and  uncritical;  but  for 
a  half-century  it  was  the  repository  from  which  his¬ 
torians  and  biographers  chiefly  drew  in  dealing  with 
Jackson’s  epoch.  John  H.  Eaton’s  Life  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son  (1842)  describes  Jackson’s  earlier  career,  mainly  on 
the  military  side;  but  it  never  rises  above  the  level  of 
a  campaign  document. 

Among  biographies  of  Jackson’s  contemporaries  may 
be  mentioned  George  T.  Curtis,  Life  of  Daniel  Webster y 
2  vols.  (1870);  Henry  C.  Lodge,  Daniel  Webster  (1883); 
John  B.  McMaster,  Daniel  Webster  (1902);  Frederic  A. 
Ogg,  Daniel  Webster  (1914);  Carl  Schurz,  Henry  Clayy 
2  vols.  (1887);  Gaillard  Hunt,  John  C.  Calhoun  (1908); 
William  M.  Meigs,  The  Life  of  John  Caldwell  Calhouny 
2  vols.  (1917);  John  T.  Morse,  John  Quincy  Adams 
(1882);  Edward  M.  Shepard,  Martin  Van  Buren  (1888); 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  Thomas  Hart  Benton  (1888);  and 
Theodore  D.  Jervey,  Robert  Y.  Hayne  and  His  Times 
(1909). 

On  many  topics  the  reader  will  do  well  to  go  to  mono¬ 
graphs  or  other  special  works.  Thus  Jackson’s  policy 
of  removals  from  public  office  is  presented  with  good 
perspective  in  Carl  R.  Fish,  The  Civil  Service  and  the 
Patronage  (Harvard  Historical  Studies,  xi,  1905).  The 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


239 


history  of  the  bank  controversy  is  best  told  in  Ralph  C. 
H.  Catterall,  The  Second  Bank  of  the  United  States  (1903) ; 
and  interesting  chapters  in  the  country’s  financial  his¬ 
tory  are  presented  in  Edward  G.  Bourne,  History  of  the 
Surplus  Revenue  of  1887  (1885),  and  David  Kinley,  The 
History y  Organization^  and  Influence  of  the  Independent 
Treasury  of  the  United  States  (1893).  On  the  tariff  one 
should  consult  Frank  W.  Taussig,  Tariff  History  of  the 
United  States  (6th  ed.,  1914)  and  Edward  Stanwood, 
American  Tariff  Controversies ^  2  vols.  (1903).  Similarly 
illuminating  studies  of  nullification  are  David  F.  Hous¬ 
ton,  Critical  Study  of  Nullification  in  South  Carolina 
(Harva*rd  Historical  Studies,  iii,  1896)  and  Ulrich  B. 
Phillips,  Georgia  and  State  Rights  (American  Historical 
Association  Reports,  1901,  ii). 

Aside  from  newspapers,  and  from  collections  of  public 
documents  of  private  correspondence,  which  cannot  be 
enumerated  here,  the  source  materials  for  the  period 
fall  into  two  main  classes:  books  of  autobiography  and 
reminiscence,  and  the  writings  of  travelers.  Most  con¬ 
spicuous  in  the  first  group  is  Thomas  H.  Benton,  Thirty 
Years'  View;  or,  a  History  of  the  Working  of  the  American 
Government  for  Thirty  Years,  from  1820  to  1850,  2  vols. 
(1854).  Benton  was  an  active  member  of  the  Senate 
throughout  the  Jacksonian  period,  and  his  book  gives 
an  interesting  and  valuable  first-hand  account  of  the 
public  affairs  of  the  time.  Amos  Kendall’s  Autobiog¬ 
raphy  (1872)  is,  unfortunately,  hardly  more  than  a  col¬ 
lection  of  papers  and  scattered  memoranda.  Nathan 
Sargent’s  Public  Men  and  Events,  1817-1853,  2  vols. 
(1875),  consists  of  chatty  sketches,  with  an  anti- Jackson 
slant.  Other  books  of  contemporary  reminiscence  are 
Lyman  Beecher’s  Autobiography,  2  vols.  (1863-65); 


240 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


Robert  Mayo’s  Political  Sketches  of  Eight  Years  in  Wash- 
ington  (1839);  and  S.  C.  Goodrich’s  Recollections  of  a 
Lifetime,  2  vols.  (1856).  The  one  monumental  diary  is 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Memoirs;  Comprising  Portions  of 
his  Diary  from  1795  to  18Jf8  (ed.  by  Charles  F.  Adams, 
12  vols.,  1874-77).  All  things  considered,  there  is  no 
more  important  nonoflScial  source  for  the  period. 

In  Jackson’s  day  the  United  States  was  visited  by 
an  extraordinary  number  of  Europeans  who  forthwith 
wrote  books  descriptive  of  what  they  had  seen.  Two  of 
the  most  interesting  —  although  the  least  flattering  — 
of  these  works  are  Charles  Dickens’s  American  Notes  for 
General  Circulation  (1842,  and  many  reprints)  and  Mrs. 
Frances  E.  Trollope’s  Domestic  Manners  of  the  Ameri¬ 
cans  (1832).  Two  very  readable  and  generally  sym¬ 
pathetic  English  accounts  are  Frances  A.  Kemble’s 
Journal,  1882-1833,  2  vols.  (1835)  and  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau’s  Society  in  America,  3  vols.  (2d  ed.,  1837).  The 
principal  French  work  of  the  sort  is  M.  Chevalier, 
Society,  Manners,  and  Politics  in  the  United  States  (Eng. 
trans.  from  3d  French  ed.,  1839).  Political  conditions 
in  the  country  are  described  in  Alexis  de  Tocqueville, 
Democracy  in  America  (Eng.  trans.  by  Reeve  in  2  vols., 
1862),  and  the  economic  situation  is  set  forth  in  detail 
in  James  S.  Buckingham,  America,  Historical,  Statistical 
and  Descriptive,  2  vols.  (1841),  and  The  Slave  States  of 
America,  2  vols.  (1842). 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  Jackson  makes 
acquaintance  of,  17 
Adams,  J.  Q.,  Secretary  of  State, 
and  Jackson’s  Florida  expedi¬ 
tion,  62,  63,  64;  candidate  for 
presidency,  76-77,  82-83,  84, 
86,  87,  88-93;  and  Jackson, 
80,  93-94,  108,  122,  220;  diary 
quoted,  88,  109;  “corrupt 

bargain,”  89-92,  96;  elected, 
93;  as  President,  95-100,  104- 
106;  personal  characteristics, 

96- 97 ;  abolishes  patronage, 

97- 98;  and  internal  improve¬ 
ments,  99,  100,  105;  candidate 
for  reelection  (1828),  106,  109- 
110;  no  enthusiasm  for,  113; 
on  Calhoun,  139;  and  Indian 
question,  206;  biography,  238 

Alabama,  Indians  in,  202,  203, 
204,  214 

Ambrister,  Robert,  58 
American,  New  York,  quoted,  229 
Apalachicola  River,  Nicholls 
builds  fort  on,  53;  Jackson’s 
army  marches  down,  57 
Arbuthnot,  Alexander,  53,  58 
Aurora,  Pennsylvania  news¬ 
paper,  193 

Baltimore,  welcomes  Jackson, 
64,  219;  Democratic  conven¬ 
tion  at  (1835),  225 
Bancroft,  George,  quoted,  222 
Bank,  United  States,  Jackson’s 
attitude  toward,  79,  184-88; 
Adams  and,  99;  established, 
138,  182;  and  the  South,  140; 

i6 


war  on,  181-200;  Congress  sup¬ 
ports,  187;  Jackson  plans  re¬ 
organization  of,  187;  bill  to 
recharter,  189-91;  bill  vetoed, 
190,  218;  as  political  issue, 
191;  believed  insolvent  by 
Jackson,  192-93;  removal  of 
deposits,  193-95;  senate  cen¬ 
sures  Jackson  for  removal, 
196-98;  Whigs  try  to  resur¬ 
rect  (1841),  200;  bibliography, 
239 

Barry,  W.  T.,  Postmaster-Gen¬ 
eral,  118 

Bassett,  J.  S.,  biogi’apher  of  Jack- 
son,  cited,  4,  238;  quoted,  37 
Benton,  Jesse,  Jackson  encoun¬ 
ters  21  33 

Benton,  T.  H.,  26,  149,  232,  233; 
Jackson  fights  with,  21,  33; 
quoted,  49,  113,  167;  intro¬ 
duces  bills  against  Adams, 
105;  on  Van  Buren’s  defeat  as 
minister,  136;  on  Foote’s  reso¬ 
lution,  144;  on  Hayne,  147; 
and  United  States  Bank  ques¬ 
tion,  190-91,  195;  and  censure 
of  Jackson,  197 ;  biography,  238 
Berrien,  J.  M.,  Attorney-General, 
118 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  President  of 
United  States  Bank,  183,  184, 
185-86,  187,  188,  189,  192,  195 
Black  Hawk  War,  215 
Blair,  F.  P.,  editor  of  the  Globe, 
130,  193,  221,  232 
Blount,  William,  17;  Governor  of 
Tennessee,  26, 28, 30,  35, 55, 74 


241 


242 


INDEX 


Borgne,  Lake,  British  army  at, 
40 

Boston,  endorses  Jackson’s  proc¬ 
lamation  to  South  Carolina, 
176;  welcomes  President  Jack- 
son,  219 

Bowyer,  Fort,  British  attempt  to 
destroy,  39 

Branch,  John,  Secretary  of  Navy, 
118 

Brown,  Jacob,  of  New  York,  51 

Buchanan,  James,  author  of 
“corrupt  bargain,”  90 

Burr,  Aaron,  Jackson  makes  ac¬ 
quaintance  of,  17;  opinion  of 
Jackson,  73 

Butler,  General,  233 

Cabinet,  Jackson’s,  117-18,  129- 
130,  135-36,  193-94,  218; 

Kitchen,  130-31 

Cadwalader,  General  Thomas, 
110,  184 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  father  makes 
home  at  Waxhaw,  5;  Secretary 
of  War,  and  Jackson’s  Florida 
expedition,  56,  62,  135;  aspir¬ 
ant  for  presidency,  77-78,  87, 
103,  131;  Jackson’s  attitude 
toward,  80;  candidate  for  vice 
presidency,  84;  elected,  85; 
described  by  Adams,  109;  re¬ 
elected  to  vice  presidency, 
110;  Eaton  controversy,  132- 
134;  against  Van  Buren,  134; 
sectionalist,  139;  at  Hayne- 
Webster  debate,  149;  change 
in  political  ideas,  159;  Exposi¬ 
tion,  161, 168;  and  nullification, 
161,  162,  164-65,  166,  167-68, 
171,  172;  seeks  support  of 
South  Carolina,  162;  Address 
to  the  People  of  South  Carolina, 
168;  Fort  Hill  Letter,  168;  and 
tariff,  169;  resigns  vice  presi¬ 
dency,  172;  in  Senate,  172, 
196;  on  Indian  policy,  216; 
bibliography,  238 

Calhoun,  Mrs.  J.  C.,  134 


Calhoun,  Rebecca,  marries  An¬ 
drew  Pickens,  5 

Callava,  Jose,  Governor  of  Flori¬ 
da,  58-59,  65,  66,  67 
Campbell,  G.  W.,  Senator  from 
Tennessee,  23 

Carrickfergus  (Ireland),  home  of 
Jackson’s  father,  1,  9 
Carroll,  William,  111 
Cass,  Lewis,  Secretary  of  War, 
136;  accompanies  Jackson  to 
New  England,  219;  possible 
candidate  for  presidency,  233 
Castlereagh,  Robert  Stewart, 
Lord  Viscount,  quoted,  61 
Caucus  as  nominating  device, 
81-82,  84 

Charleston  (S.  C.),  Andrew 

Jackson’s  father  arrives  at,  1; 
Jackson  in,  9-10;  preparations 
against,  173;  nullifiers  meet  at, 
178 

Cherokee  Indians,  number,  203; 
location,  203;  civilization,  204; 
and  Georgia,  207-13;  treaty 
with,  214;  remainder  removed 
from  the  East,  215 
Cherokee  Nation  vs.  State  of 
Georgia,  210-11 

Cheves,  Langdon,  exponent  of 
broad  constitutional  construc¬ 
tion,  159;  President  of  United 
States  Bank,  183 
Chickasaw  Indians,  number,  203; 
location,  203;  civilization,  203^- 
204;  removed,  214 
Choctaw  Indians,  number,  203; 
location,  203;  civilization,  203- 
204;  removed,  214 
Cincinnati  greets  Jackson,  115 
Civil  service,  Adams  and,  97-98; 
bibliography,  239;  see  also 
Spoils  System 

Claiborne,  W.  C.  C.,  Governor- 
General  and  Intendant  of 
Louisiana,  25 

Clay,  Henry,  quoted,  43;  and 
Jackson’s  Florida  expedition, 
62,  63;  candidate  for  presi- 


INDEX 


243 


Clay — Continued 
dency  (1824),  78,  82,  83,  84, 
86,  87,  88;  and  Jackson,  80; 
“corrupt  bargain,’’  89-92,  96; 
Secretary  of  State,  94,  97,  105; 
and  nationalism,  100;  loses 
hope  of  presidency,  109;  Com¬ 
promise  Tariff,  179;  and  United 
States  Bank,  189,  196;  on  veto 
power,  190;  nominee  of  Nation¬ 
al  Republican  party  (1832), 
191,  225;  on  disposal  of  pro¬ 
ceeds  from  public  lands,  199; 
on  removal  of  Indians,  215-16 
Clayton,  J.  M.,  of  Delaware,  148 
Clinton,  DeWitt,  toasted  at 
Tammany  dinner,  64 
Cochrane,  Sir  Alexander  Inglis, 
Admiral,  sends  news  of  peace 
to  Jackson,  46 
Cocke,  General  John,  33,  34 
Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  141 
Columbia  (S.  C.)»  ordinance  of 
nullification  drawn  up  at, 
170-71,  174 

Columbian  Observer  of  Phila¬ 
delphia,  89,  90 

Concord  (N.  H.)»  Jackson  goes 
to,  219 

Congress,  question  of  Jackson’s 
Florida  expedition,  62-63;  and 
Adams,  104-05;  nationalistic 
laws,  138;  Webster-Hayne  de¬ 
bate,  145-57;  Force  Bill,  177, 
179,  180;  Verplanck  Bill,  178; 
and  United  States  Bank,  187, 
189-91,  196;  Senate  censures 
Jackson,  196-98,  228;  Senate 
ratifies  Indian  treaty,  206; 
creates  Indian  reservation,  209 
Constitution,  Adams  for  liberal 
construction,  99;  amendment 
proposed,  105;  questions  in 
1828,  143;  Webster-Hayne 

debate,  145-57 

Corn  Tassel,  Cherokee  executed 
in  Georgia,  212 

Cotton,  influence  of  price  on  sen¬ 
timent  of  South  Carolina,  159 


Crawford,  W.  H.,  at  Waxhaw 
settlement,  5;  and  Jackson, 
62,  80;  supported  by  Van 
Buren,  64;  candidate  for  presi¬ 
dency,  76,  77,  81,  82,  83,  86; 
health  fails,  83-84;  supporters 
ally  themselves  to  Jackson,  103 
Creek  Indians,  and  Tecumseh, 
25;  massacre  at  Fort  Mims, 
31,  32;  outbreak  in  South,  32- 
36,  52,  54-55;  treaty  with, 
37-38;  number,  203;  location, 
203;  civilization,  203;  dis¬ 
possessed,  205-07,  214;  see 
also  Creek  War,  Seminole  War 
Creek  War,  32-38 
Cumberland  River,  Jackson’s 
army  dowm  the,  28 

Dale,  Sam,  and  Jackson,  174 
Davie,  W.  R.,  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  5 

Democratic  party,  and  United 
States  Bank,  195;  convention 
(1835),  225 

Dickerson,  Mahlon,  of  New 
Jersey,  148 

Dickinson,  Charles,  killed  in  duel 
by  Jackson,  21 

Donelson,  A.  J.,  nephew  and 
private  secretary  of  Jackson, 
114,  130 

Donelson,  Mrs.  A.  J.,  mistress 
of  White  House,  114,  221 
Donelson,  John,  helps  found 
Nashville,  12;  Jackson  marries 
daughter  of,  15 

Duane,  W.  J.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  193-94 

Earl,  R.  E.  W.,  artist  engaged  in 
painting  portraits  of  Jackson, 
114 

Eaton,  J.  H.,  and  Jackson,  7-8, 
52,  73,  116,  130;  Secretary  of 
War,  8,  117,  118,  208 
Eaton,  Mrs.  J.  H.,  88,  132-34 
Elections,  Presidential,  of  1824, 
82-93, 95-96;  manner  of  select- 


244 


INDEX 


Elections — Continued 

ing  President  an  issue  of  1824, 
84;  “corrupt  bargain,”  89-92, 
96;  proposed  amendment  to 
Constitution  providing  direct, 
105;  campaign  of  1828, 106-10; 
of  1832,  187,  191;  of  1836, 
226-27;  of  1840,  232;  of  1844, 
233 

England,  frontiersman’s  attitude 
toward,  25;  see  also  War  of 
1812 

Everett,  Edward,  cited,  219 

Finance,  national  debt  paid,  199; 
Government  funds  in  state 
banks,  199;  independent  treas¬ 
ury  system,  199-200,  235;  see 
also  Bank,  United  States ;  Tariff 
Florida  and  Jackson,  22,  27-28, 
30-31,  39-40,  51-61;  South¬ 
west  longs  for  conquest  of,  26; 
encourages  Indian  uprising, 
32;  Spain  and,  52,  53,  55-56, 
61;  controversy  over  Jackson’s 
expedition,  61-64;  United 
States  treaty  with  Spain,  64 
Foote,  S.  A.,  of  Connecticut,  144 
Force  Bill,  177,  179;  nullified 
by  South  Carolina  convention, 
180 

Forsyth,  John,  of  Georgia,  149 
Fowltown,  fight  at,  54,  55 
Franklin,  “Western  District” 
tries  to  set  up  State  of,  12 
Frelinghuysen,  Theodore,  of  * 
New  Jersey,  148 
Friends,  Society  of,  protest  re¬ 
moval  of  Indians,  216 

Gaines,  General  E.  P.,  54,  55 
Gallatin,  Albert,  Jackson  makes 
acquaintance  of,  17;  describes 
Jackson,  18 
Gazette,  Nashville,  75 
General  Neville  (river  boat), 
Jackson  travels  do^vn  Ohio 
on,  101 

Georgia,  and  state  rights,  142; 


and  tariff,  169;  Indians  of, 
202,  203,  204,  205  et  seq.\  nulli¬ 
fication,  213 

Ghent,  Treaty  of,  43,  53, 137 
Gibbs,  General,  40 
Girard  Bank  of  Philadelphia, 
treasury  receipts  to  be  de¬ 
posited  in,  194 

Globe,  administration  organ,  130, 
230 

Green,  Duff,  party  manager  for 
Jackson,  115;  edits  United 
States  Telegraph,  118;  in  Kitch¬ 
en  Cabinet,  130 

Grundy,  Felix,  of  Tennessee,  74, 
75,  149 

Hall,  D.  A.,  Federal  district 
judge  in  New  Orleans,  47 
Hamilton,  J.  A.,  117,  118 
Hamilton,  James,  Governor  of 
South  Carolina,  168,  170,  179 
Harrisburg  (Penn.),  nominating 
convention  at,  84 
Harrison,  W.  H.,  Governor  of 
Indiana,  at  Tippecanoe,  25; 
Jackson  offers  aid  to,  26;  re¬ 
signs  commission,  37 ;  candi¬ 
date  for  presidency,  226-27 
Hartford  Convention,  138 
Harvard  University  confers  de¬ 
gree  on  Jackson,  220 
Havana,  Jackson  sends  Span¬ 
iards  to,  60 

Hayne,  R.  Y.,  110,  167;  speech 
in  Congress,  144-45;  debate 
with  Webster,  145-57;  per¬ 
sonal  characteristics,  147; 
change  in  political  ideas,  159, 
163;  and  nullification,  162, 
176;  elected  Governor  of  South 
Carolina,  172:  biography,  239 
Hermitage,  The,  Jackson’s  home, 
19-20,  50,  55,  67,  68-72,  102- 
103,  218,  223,  231,  233,  234 
Hill,  Isaac,  111,  116,  221;  Senate 
rejects  nomination  of,  129;  in 
Kitchen  Cabinet,  130;  quoted^ 
164-65,  181 


INDEX 


24.5 


Holmes,  John,  of  Maine,  148 

Horseshoe  Bend,  battle  with 
Creeks  at,  35 

Houston,  Sam,  35 

Hunter’s  Hill,  Jackson’s  planta¬ 
tion  near  Nashville,  15,  19 

Huntsville  (Ala.),  Jackson  brings 
forces  together  at,  33 

Indian  Queen  Tavern  (the  Wig¬ 
wam),  115,  120 

Indian  Territory  created  (1834), 
214 

Indians,  142;  hostility  near  Nash¬ 
ville,  12;  Creek  War,  32-38; 
Seminole  War,  54-58;  removal 
of,  201-16,  236;  see  also  names 
of  tribes 

Ingham,  S.  D.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  117 

Internal  improvements,  138; 
Jackson  on,  79;  issue  in  1824, 
84;  Adams  and,  99,  100,  105; 
South  opposes,  140;  South 
Carolina  and,  159;  Maysville 
Road  veto,  218 

Jackson,  Andrew,  father  of  the 
President,  1-3 

Jackson,  Andrew,  birth  (1767), 
3-4;  birthplace,  4-5;  early  life, 
5  et  seq.\  personal  characteris¬ 
tics,  6,  7,  11,  15,  18,  19,  20-21, 
213,  217,  234-35;  education, 
7,  10;  in  the  Revolution,  8-9; 
attitude  toward  British,  9; 
business  enterprises,  9-10,  19- 
20;  in  Charleston,  9-10;  ad¬ 
mitted  to  bar,  11;  goes  to 
Tennessee,  13-14;  as  “solici¬ 
tor”  in  Nashville,  14-16; 
marriage,  15;  represents  Ten¬ 
nessee  in  Congress,  16-17;  in 
Senate,  17-18,  69;  as  judge  in 
Tennessee,  18-19;  quarrels,  20- 
21;  in  War  of  1812,  26  et  seq.; 
nicknamed  “Old  Hickory,” 
30;  in  Creek  War,  33-38;  at 


New  Orleans,  40-43,  45-50; 
popularity,  45,  50,  63-64,  115, 
210,  229-30;  in  Seminole  War, 
and  Florida  expedition,  55-61; 
controversy  about  Florida  ex¬ 
pedition,  61-64;  as  Governor 
of  Florida,  64-67;  life  at  the 
Hermitage,  68-72,  102-03; 

candidate  for  presidency 
(1824),  73  et  seq.,  95;  and 
tariff,  79,  143,  162-63,  169, 
235-36;  and  Adams,  80,  93- 
94,  108,  122,  220;  and  Craw¬ 
ford,  80;  and  Clay,  80;  and 
Calhoun,  80,  134-35;  candi¬ 
date  for  presidency  (1828), 
100  et  seq.;  resigns  from  Senate, 
102;  as  a  politician,  107-08; 
election,  109-10;  journey  to 
Washington,  114-15;  as  Presi¬ 
dent-elect,  115-19;  Cabinet, 
117-18,  129-30,  135-36,  193- 
194,  218;  inauguration,  119- 
124;  and  Spoils  System,  124- 
127,  236;  and  Congress,  128; 
Kitchen  Cabinet,  130-31; 
Eaton  controversy,  132-34; 
toast  to  the  Union,  164-66; 
and  nullification,  167,  173-77; 
candidate  for  reelection  (1832), 
168,  218;  proclamation  to 

South  Carolina  (1832),  175- 
176;  Force  Bill,  177,  179,  180; 
and  United  States  Bank,  182, 
184  et  seq.,  218;  censured  by 
Senate,  196-98,  228;  and  In¬ 
dian  policy,  208-09,  214-16; 
and  Georgia,  213;  journeys  to 
New  England,  219;  Harvard 
confers  degree  on,  220;  life  at 
Wkite  House,  221-23;  his 
finances,  223-24;  political  in¬ 
fluence,  224-28;  farewell  ad¬ 
dress,  228-29;  return  to  Nash¬ 
ville,  230;  last  years,  231-34; 
death  (1845),  234;  Webster’s 
characterization  of,  234-35; 
achievements,  235-36;  bibli¬ 
ography,  237-38 


246 


INDEX 


Jackson,  Mrs.  Andrew,  mother 
of  the  President,  S-4,  5,  8-9 
Jackson,  Mrs.  Andrew,  wife  of 
the  President,  48-50,  65,  71, 
122;  quoted,  65-66,  68-69; 
death,  111-12 

Jackson,  Fort,  36;  Treaty  of,  54 
Jamaica,  British  from,  40 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  Jackson 
makes  acquaintance  of,  17; 
on  Jackson,  18;  candidate  of 
the  masses,  113;  and  State 
rights,  139,  141-42,  164 
Jonesboro  (Tenn.)»  Jackson’s 
traveling  party  at,  13 

Kemble,*  Fanny,  and  Jackson, 
217 

Kendall,  Amos,  221;  in  Kitchen 
Cabinet,  130 

Kentucky  made  a  State  (1791), 
16 

Key,  F.  S.,  at  Jackson’s  inaugura¬ 
tion,  121 

King,  W.  R.,  of  Alabama,  149 
Kitchen  Cabinet,  130-31 
Knoxville  (Tenn.),  25;  conven¬ 
tion  at,  16 

Kremer,  George,  and  “corrupt 
bargain,”  89-91 

La  Fayette,  Marquis  de,  219;  and 
Jackson,  71-72 

Lavasseur,  secretary  to  La  Fay¬ 
ette,  70 

Lewis,  Major  W.  B.,  63,  125, 129, 
134-35;  campaign  manager 
for  Jackson,  74,  75, 85, 103,  111, 
112,  163;  accompanies  Jack- 
son  to  Washington,  114,  116, 
221;  in  Kitchen  Cabinet,  130 
Livingston,  Edward,  48;  Jack- 
son  makes  acquaintance  of, 
17;  declines  place  in  cabinet, 
117;  Secretary  of  State,  136; 
and  proclamation  to  South 
Carolina,  175;  and  United 
States  Bank,  188;  minister  to 
France,  193 


Lodge,  H.  C.,  quoted,  146 
Louisville  greets  Jackson,  115 

Macay,  Spruce,  lawyer  with 
whom  Jackson  studied,  10,  12 
M’Culloch  vs.  Maryland  (1819), 
141,  183 

MacDonald,  William,  Jacksonian 
Democracy^  quoted,  152 
McDuflSe,  George,  162,  189 
McKemy  family  at  'whose  home 
Jackson  is  said  to  have  been 
born,  4 

McLane,  Louis,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  136;  and  United 
States  Bank,  188,  193 
McLean,  John,  Postmaster-  Gen¬ 
eral,  118;  candidate  for  presi¬ 
dency,  226 

McNairy,  John,  12-13,  14,  21 
Mangum,  W.  P.,  of  North  Caro¬ 
lina,  227 

Marshall,  John,  Chief- Justice, 
at  Jackson’s  inauguration,  120, 
121;  and  State  rights,  138, 141; 
on  Cherokee  nation,  211;  and 
Jackson,  213 

Martinsville  (N.  C.),  Jackson 
practices  law  at,  1 1 
Mason,  Jeremiah,  branch  bank 
president,  185 
Maysville  Road  veto,  218 
Mims,  Fort  (Ala.),  massacre  at, 
31,  32,  36 

Mississippi  and  Indians,  214 
Mississippi  Valley,  British  plan 
assault  on,  38 
Missouri  Compromise,  159 
Mobile,  Jackson  and,  29,  37,  39, 
57;  Congress  authorizes  taking 
of,  30 

Monroe,  Fortress,  173 
Monroe,  James,  Secretary  of 
War.  40;  Jackson  writes  to,  43; 
and  Jackson’s  Florida  expedi¬ 
tion,  56,  61,  62,  67;  Jackson 
supports,  80;  Adams  confers 
with,  94;  popular  approval  of, 
95;  and  Indian  question,  206 


INDEX 


247 


Monticello,  home  of  Jefferson,  18 
Morganton  (N.  C.),  25;  Jackson 
joins  traveling  party  at,  13 

Nashville  (Tenn.),  founded,  12; 
Jackson  goes  to,  13-14;  in 
1789,  14;  Phillips  reaches,  25; 
Jackson’s  army  assembles  at, 
28;  entertains  Jackson,  37, 
101;  Jackson  in,  51,  230 
Natchez  (Miss.),  Jackson’s  troops 
in,  29,  30 

National  Intelligencer,  62,  89 
National  Republican  party,  104, 
108;  defends  United  States 
Bank,  191,  195;  joins  Whigs, 
225 

Negro  Fort,  Nicholls’s,  53,  54,  57 
New  England  receives  President 
Jackson,  219-20 

New  Orleans,  news  of  War  of 
1812  reaches,  25;  Jackson  and, 
28,  37,  39,  40-43,  45-50;  gun¬ 
boats  sent  from,  57 
New  Orleans  Territory,  Jackson 
denied  governorship  of,  20 
New  York  (State)  controls  vice 
presidency,  75-76 
New  York  City,  fetes  Jack- 
son,  63,  219;  and  nullifica¬ 
tion,  176 

Nicholls,  Colonel  Edward,  32, 
52-53 

Nolte  describes  Jackson  and  his 
wife,  49-50 

North  Carolina,  claims  to  be 
Jackson’s  birthplace,  4;  and 
tariff,  169 

Nullification,  161-80,  236;  and 
Jefferson,  142;  Georgia  and, 
142,  213;  South  Carolina 

Exposition,  142;  Hayne  on, 
150;  Webster  on,  151,  152-53; 
Calhoun  and,  161,  162,  164- 
165,  166,  167-68,  171,  172; 
Turnbull’s  Crisis,  161;  Cal¬ 
houn’s  Exposition,  161 ;  Jackson 
and,  167,  173-77,  219;  South 
Carolina’s  ordinance  of,  170- 


171,  179-80;  Force  Bill,  177, 
179,  180;  Compromise  Tariff, 
178-79;  bibliography,  239 

Ohio  on  State  rights,  141 

O’Neil,  “Peggy,”  see  Eaton, 
Mrs.  J.  H. 

O’Neil’s  Tavern,  87-88 

Onis,  Luis  de,  Spanish  Minister, 
61,  64 

Oregon,  Jackson  desires  exten¬ 
sion  in,  233 

Osborn  vs.  United  States  Bank 
(1824),  183 


Pakenham,  General  Sir  Edward, 
40,  42 

Panama  Congress  (1826),  105 
Parton,  James,  biographer  of 
Jackson,  238;  cited,  4,  18-19, 
29,  72,  175 

Peale,  picture  of  Jackson  by,  64 
Pennsylvania,  193-94;  grants 
Bank  charter,  198 
Pensacola,  Jackson  .and,  29,  39, 
40,  58;  Nicholls  at,  32;  Spanish 
in,  52;  toast  to,  60 
Philadelphia,  national  capital, 
17;  fetes  Jackson,  63,  219 
Phillips,  William,  “Billy,”  cou¬ 
rier,  23,  24-25,  26 
Pickens,  Andrew,  at  Waxhaw 
settlement,  5 

Pittsburgh  greets  Jackson,  115 
Poinsett,  J.  R.,  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  174 

Political  parties,  no  party  lines 
in  1822,  76;  see  also  Demo¬ 
cratic,  National  Republican, 
Republican,  Whig 
Polk,  J.  K.,  230,  233 
Public  lands,  Adams  and,  99; 
Foote’s  resolution  (1829),  144- 
145,  155;  sale  of,  169,  199 

Randolph,  John,  17,  93,  96 
“Red  Sticks,”  name  for  Creek 
braves,  36,  54 


248 


INDEX 


Reid,  John,  biographer  of  Jack- 
son,  7 

Republican  party,  and  Constitu¬ 
tion,  99;  supports  Jackson, 
103 

Rhea,  John,  56,  74 
“Rhea  letter,”  56 
Richmond  Enquirer y  141 
Roane,  Judge,  of  Virginia,  141 
Robertson,  James,  helps  found 
Nashville,  12 
Rush,  Richard,  cited,  61 

St.  Augustine,  Jackson  and,  29; 
Spaniards  in,  52 

St.  Marks,  Spaniards  in,  52; 

Jackson  and,  57,  58 
Salisbury  (N.  C.),  25;  Jackson 
studies  law  at,  10-11 
Scott,  General  Winfield,  173,  215 
Scott,  Fort,  55,  57 
Seminole  Indians,  52 
Seminole  War,  54-58 
Sevier,  John.  Governor  of  Ten¬ 
nessee,  20 

Seymour,  Horatio,  of  Vermont, 
148 

Slavery,  South  resists  federal 
legislation  on,  140 
South,  The,  on  State  rights,  139- 
140,  143;  and  United  States 
Bank,  140;  and  tariff,  160-61; 
see  also  names  of  States 
South  Carolina,  claims  to  be 
birthplace  of  Jackson,  4;  and 
tariff,  142,  145,  159,  166;  see 
also  Nullification 
South  Carolina  Expositiony  142 
“Southwest  Territory,”  16 
Spain,  and  Florida,  52,  53,  55- 
56;  treaty  with,  64;  see  also 
Florida 

Spoils  System,  Jackson  and, 
124-27,  236 

State  rights.  139-40;  Hayne  on, 
150,  154;  Webster  on,  152;  see 
also  Nullification 
Story,  Judge  Joseph,  quoted,  123 
Strother,  Fort,  34,  35 


Supreme  Court,  on  State  rights, 
138-39;  on  United  States 
Bank,  183;  on  Indian  rights, 
210-12;  Georgia  defies,  212- 
213 

Suwanee  (Fla.),  Jackson  at,  58 
Swann,  Thomas,  Jackson  and,  21 

Tammany  entertains  Jackson,  63 
Taney,  R.  B.,  Attorney-General^ 
136;  writes  for  Jackson,  190, 
228;  Secretary  of  Treasury p 
194,  196 

Tariff,  84, 158  et  seq. ;  Jackson  and, 
79,  143,  162-63,  169,  235-36; 
Adams  and,  99;  Calhoun  votes 
for  protection,  139;  South 
opposes  protective,  140,  142, 
143,  159-60;  woolens  bill 

(1827),  160;  Act  of  1824,  160, 
161;  Act  of  1828,  160,  169, 
170;  Act  of  1832,  169,  170; 
Force  Bill,  177,  179,  180; 
Verplanck  Bill,  178;  Com¬ 
promise  Tariff,  179;  bibliog¬ 
raphy,  239;  see  also  Nullifica¬ 
tion 

Tecumseh  works  among  South¬ 
ern  Indians,  25-26 
Tennessee,  admitted  as  State 
(1796),  16;  meaning  of  name, 
16;  Legislature  favors  Jackson’s 
nomination,  102;  Indians,  202 
Texas,  Jackson  favors  annexa¬ 
tion,  235 

Tippecanoe,  Battle  of,  25 
Tohopeka,  battle  at,  35 
Troup,  G.  M.,  Governor  of  Geor¬ 
gia,  206 

Turnbull,  R.  J.,  The  Crisisy  161 
Turner,  F.  J.,  The  Rise  of  the  New 
West,  quoted,  159-60 
Twelve-mile  Creek,  Jackson’s 
father  settles  on,  2 
Tyler,  John,  President,  148; 
Bank  vetoes,  200 

Union  County  (N.  C.),  Jackson’s 
father  settles  in,  3 


INDEX 


249 


United  States  Telegraph,  of  Wash¬ 
ington,  Jackson  organ,  102, 
118,  130 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  63,  115,  219, 
221,  232,  233;  supports  Jack- 
son,  103-04;  Governor  of 
New  York,  116-17;  Secretary 
of  State,  117,  118;  in  Kitchen 
Cabinet,  130;  aims  at  presi¬ 
dency,  132-34,  135;  in  Eaton 
controversy,  133-34;  appoint¬ 
ment  as  minister  to  Great 
Britain  not  ratified,  136;  ad¬ 
vises  Jackson,  166;  candidate 
for  vice  presidency,  168,  224; 
sets  up  independent  treasury 
system,  200;  candidate  for 
presidency,  224-25 ;  election, 
226-27;  inauguration,  230;  bio¬ 
graphy,  238 

Verplanck,  J.  C.,  of  New  York, 
tariff  bill,  178 

Virginia,  controls  presidency, 
75-76;  and  State  rights,  141- 
142;  and  tariff,  169 

War  of  1812,  24  ei  seq.,  52,  99, 
137-38 

Washington,  George,  14,  219 

Washington,  captured,  38;  Jack- 


son  journeys  to,  50-51,  85, 
114-15 

Waxhaw  settlement,  Jackson 
family  at,  2;  notable  people 
from,  5;  in  the  Revolution,  8 
Weathersford,  Creek  half-breed, 
36 

Webster,  Daniel,  18,  93, 189,  196; 
quoted,  115-16,  127;  constitu¬ 
tional  debate  (1830),  145-57; 
life  and  characteristics,  147- 
148;  Jackson’s  estimate  of, 
225-26;  on  Jackson,  234-35; 
bibliography,  238 
Webster,  Ezekiel,  113 
West,  The,  and  War  of  1812,  25; 

and  Indian  policy,  201  et  seq. 
“Western  District”  tries  to  set 
up  State,  12 

Whig  party,  225;  tries  to  resur¬ 
rect  United  States  Bank,  200 
White,  H.  L.,  of  Tennessee,  116, 
149;  candidate  for  presidency, 
224,  226,  227 

Wilkinson,  General  James,  29, 
31  37 

Wirt,  William,  210 
Woodbury,  Levi,  Secretary  of 
Navy,  136,  148,  219 
Worcester  vs.  State  of  Georgia. 
211-12 


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